Consent granted for the development of Scotland’s £500M underground pumped storage hydro plant

The development of a £500M underground pumped storage hydro plant in Ben Cruachan, Scotland, was granted consent on Tuesday, July 25.

The project involves the expansion of the existing Cruachan Power Station, which was opened by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1965. The expansion is planned to have a capacity of 600MW, bringing the new total generation capacity of Cruachan to 1.04GW.

Such hydro plants work as giant batteries and the demand for them is constantly rising, due to the need for storage of energy produced by renewables.

More specifically, renewable energy production is highly dependent on weather conditions, and it often happens that production either doesn’t meet demand or exceeds it.

Hydro pumped storage facilities work by using reversable turbines to move water through tunnels between high and low altitude reservoirs. That is, when energy production is higher than demand, turbines use it to move water to higher reservoirs and then release it back to produce energy when needed.

The planning consent application for the expansion of Cruachan was first made in May of 2022 and was granted on Tuesday, during a visit of Scotland’s first prime minister, Humza Yousaf, to the site.

This project is part of the developer’s broader £7bn investment plan in clean energy and is expected to be completed in 2030.