From the Guardian today:
Great Britain’s first new major hydropower projects in more than 40 years are expected to move ahead after the energy regulator gave a provisional green light to three proposals as part of a plan to reduce the country’s reliance on energy imports.
All three of the new pumped storage hydroelectric power station projects are due to be built in northern Scotland, where the region’s lochs will act as natural reservoirs to serve the hydropower stations.
The Loch Kemp project, developed by Statera Energy, plans to draw water from Loch Ness, and SSE’s Coire Glas project expects to draw from Loch Lochy between Fort William and Inverness. Gilkes Energy’s Earba project will use Loch Leamhain and Loch Earba to create the UK’s largest pumped storage hydro facility.
The energy minister, Michael Shanks (above left), said: “Forty years after the country’s last pumped storage facility, this government is getting Britain building again. The lesson from the conflict in Iran is clear: Britain cannot afford to remain at the mercy of volatile fossil fuel markets and leave families exposed to the next price shock.”
These are long-duration storage assets designed for grid flexibility. They store surplus renewable energy (mainly wind) by pumping water uphill and release it quickly when demand is high or other renewables are low. They don’t generate “new” energy like a conventional power station; they shift and balance existing supply.
Current UK pumped storage total is around 2.8–3 GW. These three projects alone could more than double that capacity, significantly helping to stabilise the grid and support power delivery (including to southern England and London) via existing and planned transmission lines.
https://www.sserenewables.com/hydro/coire-glas/
Will anyone ask Shanks how this affects the case for Scottish Independence, before he loses his job in 2029?
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Talking-up Scotland 
I keep seeing Ytube ads for electricity (I don’t watch the whoel thing) I think ‘Scottish power’ and maybe other private companies saying how much we rely on leccy and so need more investment re hydro(?) in the Highlands, so they are investing blah blah blah. Aren’t we lucky!
Hmm I seem to recall the UKEngGov recently blocked a huge Chinese investment in renewables into the Highlands, UKEnggOv saying it was due to ‘security’ risk. Sigh.
Then they closed down Grangemouth, if that wasn’t a political move by the EngGov, I don’t what it was.
The UKEngGov and their dodgy pals abroad intend to control all of Scotland’s resources, whether it’s water, electricity, gas, tech industry etc. All up for grabs.
You know, the pretendy lefty Guardian renaming the UK ‘Great Britain’, is that just another form of assimilating the devolved NATIONS into their UK or Britain or whatever they want to call it. It’s 2026, and there’s nothing ‘great’ about their ‘Britain’.
Scottish not ‘British’.
Saor Alba.
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