Dalavich to celebrate hydro scheme opening

A £1.5MILLION hydro scheme run by Dalavich villagers officially opens this Sunday.

MSP Mike Russell has been invited to do the honours as part of the weekend’s planned celebrations.

The scheme took 10 years of dreaming, five years of planning and nine months of construction to get up and running, and residents living in the former forestry village can expect to benefit by £2million in the next 20 years by selling hydro electricity to the National Grid.

Project manager Carol Thomas set up a community benefits society called Awesome Energy (Dalriada) Ltd to run it, with five people trained and paid to carry out regular checks on the hydro turbine which cost about £225,000 and was shipped in from the Czech Republic.

After a feasibility study in 2012 and planning permission being granted in 2014, the hydro finally went operational on January 31 this year. It partnered up with renewable energy business Innogy, owners of Braevallich Hydro near Dalmally, which is allowing Dalavich to share their grid connection.

Mrs Thomas said: ‘It’s been a long development process for us to get to this stage, and as volunteers with no previous experience in this field we have faced and overcome many challenges along the way. The community is so proud to see all our hard work pay off.’

And Andy Huthwaite, director of commercial and connections at SSEN, added: ‘With the scheme now operational we would like to congratulate the community on their dedication to the delivery of the project.’