August 2021 plans were announced for the modernisation of one of Scotland’s best-known small-scale hydropower plants at Tummel ­Bridge in the Scottish Council Area of Perth and Kinross. The plant was originally built between 1931 and 1933, and for the last ten years it has been registered as a category-A listed monument. As a result, the neo-classically-influenced architecture, which to this day houses the two vertical Francis turbines with a total power capacity of 34,000 kW, is also a protected structure. The turbines process the potential of a 58-m gross head. Most of the water in the River Tummel flows out at the end of Loch Rannoch. The operators, SEE Renewable, are now planning to update the machinery as part of a 50-million-pound project aimed at increasing the power output of the plant and extending the working life of the technical infrastructure.

photo credits: Wikimedia/Peter Bond