Raasay hydro scheme logs new approach to hit deadline
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An island hydro scheme is still on track, despite delays caused by the Covid-19 restrictions.
The Inverarish Hydro Scheme on Raasay needs to be operational by September 2021 in order to secure money from the feed-in tariff for providing power to the national grid.
The community trust behind the plans, the Raasay Development Trust (RDT), says it has had to make some major adjustments to its plans to meet the deadline.
These include working with Forestry and Land Scotland to reschedule some timber harvesting work to allow construction to go ahead at the earliest opportunity.
The hydro scheme is the first application of its kind to FLS’s Community Asset Transfer Scheme – to build and operate a community owned ‘run-of-river’ hydro scheme.
RDT chairman Iain Hector Ross said: “Sustainable energy solutions will help us tackle fuel poverty on the island and strengthen our continuity of supply while helping us fulfil our commitment to safeguard our environment for future generations.
“The hydro scheme will improve the resilience of our community, giving us access to power, reducing our reliance on imported fossil fuels and establishing a small income stream that can fund other projects and contribute to a community benefit fund.
“In this initiative RDT is being supported and funded by Scottish Government’s CARES (Community and Renewable Energy Scheme) and private match funding (Community Benefit Grant) which has also been secured for the project.
“We have now received planning permission, have the necessary CAR licence from Sepa, are pre-accredited with Ofgem and have a valid grid offer from SSEN. The current Covid-19 restrictions have meant some rearranging and fine tuning of timescales, but we believe that we can quickly build momentum when things return to something near normality. We believe this is only a pause and minor inconvenience considering the longer-term sustainability benefits this project will deliver for the island.”
The renewable energy scheme sits within RDT’s five-year development plan and will be the newest addition to a long line of achievements, including buying out the island’s shop and post office, purchasing 2.4 acres of land for the purpose of building affordable houses and purchasing an old quarry site to develop a local wood fuel enterprise processing logs purchased from FLS.
Graeme Prest, Forestry and Land Scotland's north region manager, said: “We’ve worked with the RDT for some time and were involved in the initial stages of the planning for the hydro scheme, helping out with environmental surveys and assessing the access route to the site and carrying out some harvesting along the proposed line of one of the intakes and pipelines.
“Covid-19 restrictions meant we all had to have a bit of a rethink, both to make the necessary adjustments, and to assess what could be done to keep the project moving forward and be ready to get cracking once restrictions ease.
“We’ve made alterations to our proposed felling works to align them with RDT’s plans so that construction can go ahead as soon as possible in line with Scottish Government guidelines and still meet the feed-in tariff deadline.”
