The Coire Glas team – which comprises of SSE Renewables, Stantec, COWI, STRABAG and the British Geological Survey – has been shortlisted for both the UK Geotechnical Team of the Year and Ground Investigation Project of the Year awards, and will be in attendance at the JW Marriot Grosvenor House Hotel in London on June 19th, when the winner will be announced.
Coire Glas is the first large-scale pumped storage scheme in the UK for more than four decades. Situated in the Scottish Highlands, the team has had to deal with challenges around the site’s high elevation, sloping and uneven ground, and unpredictable weather conditions.
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The site team worked under challenging conditions, particularly at Sean Mheall, where drilling was carried out 24 hours, 7 days a week, with staff living in self-contained accommodation 887m above Loch Lochy, with the only access being by helicopter.
The proposed Coire Glas scheme has a potential capacity of up to 1.5GW. It is the first large-scale pumped storage project to be developed in the UK for more than 40 years and would more than double the country’s existing electricity storage capacity.
Of the project’s estimated cost of over £1 billion, more than 70% is expected to be spent in the delivery of civil engineering structures. This investment therefore will likely be spent directly in the UK and specifically in the Scottish Highlands with the associated job and other benefits that will bring.
