By Rosemary Gallagher

Copyright scotsman

As one of only four pumped storage hydro stations in the UK, and with the capacity to supply power for half a million homes, Cruachan Power Station in the heart of rural Argyll and Bute has a vital role to play in keeping the nation’s lights on. But as well as being core to the energy network, Cruachan is also an integral part of local communities. Celebrating its 60th anniversary, Cruachan provides much-needed skilled jobs and attracts tourists to the Argyll and Bute area. Ian Kinnaird, FlexGen Assets Director at Drax, explains that he has ultimate responsibility for the Cruachan plant and other FlexGen (flexible generation) assets in the group across the UK, including sites at Lanark, and Dumfries and Galloway. He says: “My job takes me the length and breadth of mainly the UK and, now and again, into other parts of Europe. I’ve been heavily involved with Cruachan for about a decade now, and I had some previous experience of the plant earlier in my career when I worked for ScottishPower. With a power station there’s always change going on, for example, with different projects being completed. “Drax acquired Cruachan back in 2018 and I would say the biggest thing I’ve seen since then is the amount of investment going into the plant, both in the people and the assets. “We started an apprentice recruitment programme again after quite a long hiatus. Drax is investing in the people that work at Cruachan so they have the required skills. The industry is going through a massive period of change and decarbonisation.” Kinnaird has been part of the ongoing transition to green energy during his career, starting in coal operations before moving into renewables, including hydro. “This has been a massive change and it means plants like Cruachan are now even more important to the grid due to the range of services and flexibility they provide,” he says. “This is particularly true in Scotland where we have lots of wind power which needs backup.” According to Kinnaird, the services that the National Grid requires from Cruachan continue to change and evolve. “We were the first power station in the UK to provide stability in terms of the electricity grid’s ability to ride through system faults or things like lightning strikes,” he comments. “At Cruachan we have that resilience to keep the power flowing. We enable the National Grid to connect more renewables to the system. “For example, when it’s not windy or sunny, it’s not possible for weather-dependent renewables, like wind or solar, to generate energy. When this happens, Cruachan steps in to store that energy when power is plentiful, then release it during times of high demand. We act as a type of anchor in the grid system in Scotland and this is even more important now that we’re getting more storms and extreme weather events.” Kinnaird is involved in the current upgrading work at Cruachan which represents an £80 million investment to increase capacity from 440 megawatts (MWs) to 480MW. This investment will put up to about 40 years of life back into units three and four. Units one and two had already been upgraded in the early 2000s. Speaking about Cruachan’s 60th birthday, Kinnaird says: “It’s a big privilege to be metaphorically holding the keys as the station approaches its diamond anniversary. We’re custodians at a point in time. We’ve been planning celebrations with our colleagues and cementing our position in local communities.” One initiative is an art competition for schools in Argyll and Bute. About 200 school pupils took part in the competition, which invited them to design a card commemorating the power station’s big year. The competition was divided into three age categories and the winners in each received a framed print of their entry along with an Amazon voucher worth £100. Each winner’s school was also awarded a science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) grant of £2,000 by Drax. And, in recognition of the volume of entries and high standard of artwork from the entrants, the company decided to award additional £500 STEM grants to the schools that didn’t have a winning entry. To showcase the talents of the young people, all 200 entries have been displayed as part of an exhibition at St Conan’s Kirk in Lochawe, close to the power station. Also included in the exhibition were archive and modern photos of Cruachan. Sarah Baird, Drax’s Scotland Community Manager, says: “The competition has been a really fun way to engage with the youngest members of our local community and see Cruachan Power Station through their eyes.” In another anniversary activity, The Drax Foundation, the company’s charitable arm, donated a total of £60,000 to two community projects. The “60 for 60!” charitable initiative saw Oban Mountain Rescue receive £30,000 towards the replacement of its command vehicle. Meanwhile, St Conan’s Kirk, one of Scotland’s most architecturally distinctive churches, was awarded £30,000 to support urgent conservation work and for energy efficiency upgrades. Drax also fuelled another year of STEM learning at the Glasgow Science Centre through its innovative hydropower education programme for young people, providing a grant of £60,000 to the initiative this year. The Drax Foundation has also provided long-term funding to the Argyll and the Isles Coast Countryside Trust (ACT) since 2023, with total donations exceeding £125,000. This funding helps ACT expand its work, including outdoor STEM learning programmes for children, and the development of their Rainforest Hub in Lochgilphead, 40 miles from Drax’s Cruachan pumped hydro storage facility. People are a core part of what makes Cruachan unique and it has provided much-needed skilled jobs since it began operating. “It’s the people that make Cruachan work and we’re celebrating them this year,” says Kinnaird. “We’re located in rural Argyll and Bute and bring skilled, high-value jobs into the local community. When people join, they tend not to leave. We continue to invest in them and they have a real sense of ownership.” Thousands of people were involved in the original construction of Cruachan. The plant is currently running with a site team of about 40. As Kinnaird says, Drax reintroduced an apprenticeship programme to Cruachan as part of its investment in young people, including graduates. It set up a partnership with local high schools to bring students to the plant for work experience or for tours of the site. This approach is designed to help them understand what it means to be an engineer or an operations member of staff and may encourage them to consider a career at Cruachan. “We get a lot of applications for our apprentice programme,” adds Kinnaird. “This is a four-year programme where our apprentices spend the first year full-time at college. Over the remaining three years of their apprenticeship, there’s a combination of day release to college, coupled with working on the job with a skilled technician who can pass on their practical knowledge. We currently have three apprentices at Cruachan.” Kinnaird explains that Cruachan looks ahead as part of its succession planning and studies the profiles of its teams to see who is likely to retire in the next few years. Drax tries to bring in as much youth into the business as it can through the apprenticeship scheme, which includes Graduate Apprenticeships. Looking to the future, as well as the current investment programme to upgrade two units, Drax also has well-developed plans to build a new hydro-electric facility next to the existing Cruachan site. But, due to factors such as rising costs and global supply chain issues, the expansion has been put on hold. Kinnaird adds: “That project has been paused, but this doesn’t stop us looking at other options for the Cruachan site and how we can add more services to provide greater security supply to the grid system in the UK and add more renewables. We’re always looking at ways to expand.”