The Scottish Government has formally approved Drax’s plans for a £500 million underground pumped storage hydro plant.
The plant will be located on the site of the Cruachan Power Station in Argyll. It will be the UK’s first new pumped hydro storage power station in almost 40 years.
The new 600MW plant at Cruachan is part of a wider £7 billion strategic investment plan by Drax in clean energy technologies between 2024 and 2030.
Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO, said: “This is a major milestone in Drax’s plans to build Britain’s first new pumped storage hydro plant in a generation.
“These plants play a critical role in stabilising the electricity system, helping to balance supply and demand through storing excess power from the national grid. When Scotland’s wind turbines are generating more power than we need, Cruachan steps in to store the renewable electricity so it doesn’t go to waste.
“With the right support from the UK Government, Drax will invest c.£500 million to more than double Cruachan’s generating capacity and support almost 1,000 jobs across the supply chain during construction.”
The expansion of Cruachan requires an updated financial stabilisation mechanism to be introduced by the UK Government. The current absence of a framework for large-scale, long-duration storage technologies has resulted in no new plants being constructed in the UK since 1984.
Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has called for the UK Government “to provide an appropriate market mechanism for hydro power and other long duration energy storage technologies.”
Yousaf added: “Hydro power has real potential to play a greater role in our transition to net zero, and to help ensure a resilient and secure electricity supply across the UK. The expansion of Cruachan will help to strengthen our energy security by providing much needed resilience in the system, supporting hundreds of jobs and providing a real boost to the Scottish economy.
“However, we know that there remain a number of challenges in developing new hydro power projects in Scotland. The Scottish Government will continue to urge the UK government to provide an appropriate market mechanism for hydro power and other long duration energy storage technologies, to ensure that the potential for hydro power is fully realised.”
Drax acquired Cruachan alongside the Galloway and Lanark hydro schemes in 2019, helping to make the company a leading provider of flexible, renewable power generation.
It is aiming to bring the plant online in 2030 following a six-year construction period.
In a letter sent to the prime minister earlier this month, the chief executives of Scottish Renewables and the British Hydropower Association (BHA) stressed the need for accelerated delivery of an investment mechanism to support the deployment of long duration electricity storage (LLES).
The UK currently has four pumped storage hydro stations, which work by pumping water uphill into one reservoir when power is cheap and then releasing it into another to generate electricity when required.
The letter says another six pumped hydro projects are being developed with over 135GWh of storage capacity.
The government is currently committed to producing a policy for enabling investment in LLES in 2024.