CNBC/18-08-2020

GLASGOW: A hydroelectric pumped storage facility housed in a hollowed-out Scottish mountain is to benefit from a £1 million ($1.32 million) upgrade to improve its efficiency. Drax Group’s Cruachan Power Station, also known as the “Hollow Mountain,” has a capacity of 440 megawatts and is able to provide power to over 90,000 homes. Its turbine hall, which is home to four generators, is based one kilometer within Ben Cruachan, a 1,126-meter mountain in the Scottish Highlands. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the site in 1965, with its final two turbines coming online in 1966 and 1967. In an announcement, Drax explained that the site’s programmable logic controller computer system would be replaced, with a company called ITI carrying out the works over a period of three years. As renewable energy capacity expands, storage systems will become increasingly important. This is because while sources of energy such as the sun and wind are renewable, they do not promise a constant stream of power.