Article: Glendoe Delays
Glendoe hydro station expected to stay closed for another year
P&J: Published: 20/07/2010
Electricity generation is unlikely to restart at the Glendoe hydro scheme in the Highlands until next summer.
Scottish and Southern Energy’s £160million station was closed last year after a rockfall blocked the main tunnel carrying water from the reservoir in the Monadliath Mountains above Fort Augustus to an underground turbine hall.
The rockfall which blocked the tunnel came just weeks after the Queen officially opened Glendoe in August last year.
Drilling and blasting has just started on bypassing the blockage following months of inspections and preparatory work.
The work will require the construction of two tunnels – one to divert water around the blockage, and a second shorter access tunnel.
Some 13 yards of the 600-yard access tunnel has already been blasted out. It is expected that this tunnel will be completed by the early autumn.
Around 60,000 tonnes of rock from the tunnel will be crushed and some will be used for maintaining the roads during the repair programme. The surplus material will be stored in the reservoir.
Preparatory work is continuing on the longer 984-yard tunnel and drilling is expected to start next month.
This time, Kilsyth-based engineer BAM Nuttall, who were involved in the original construction, are using the drill and blast method rather than a 650ft drilling machine, named Eliza Jane.
Around 160 staff will be involved in the new work. Two camps have been built on the site to house the workers. A spokeswoman said that it was not expected that electricity would be generated at the 100MW station until next year.
She said: “We hope that this repair work will go on throughout this year and we are looking to have it finished in summer 2011.
“This is something that we are putting a lot of work into and we want to get it done properly.”
The power station is the first large-scale conventional hydro electric station built in the UK since 1957, when the Errochty station in Perthshire was opened.
published on: 21/07/2010