Decade ofpower

Scottish Water has celebrated a decade of solar power production.

In 2011, the business installed its first solar photo voltaic (PV) scheme at Penwhirn Water Treatment Works in Dumfries and Galloway.

Since then, more than £14 million has been invested, enabling the production of 10MW of capacity across 53 sites.

Over this period, around 32GWH of solar power has been produced, the same amount as powering over 8600 homes a day.

Donald Macbrayne, business development manager at Scottish Water Horizons, a commercial subsidiary of Scottish Water, said: “People often raise an eyebrow when I tell them about installing solar panels in Scotland but we are still producing a significant amount of power from our sites.

“We have installed our first battery storage facility to store the energy collected during the day. This means we can still harness the power of the sun while cutting the carbon footprint of waste water treatment works by around 160 tonnes of CO2 per year.”