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BRUCE KEITH: THE GALLOWAY HYDRO-ELECTRIC-SCHEME / Galloway Conversations & Glenkens Story
Sat 18 April @ 3:00 pm
The Galloway Hydro-Electric Scheme – Bruce Keith guides us in celebration of 90 years of renewable energy generation.
Meet the innovators who moulded a landscape to harness the water resource, bringing power to Glenkens.
In Scotland’s rich heritage in hydro-electricity, Galloway was the pioneer – when it opened in 1936 it was one of the first in a new generation of major civil engineering infrastructure projects which heralded landmark renewable energy schemes.
Moreover, it’s still going strong today!
With a capacity to generate 110 megawatts of total peak power, it makes a substantial contribution to Scotland’s goal of Net Zero and the challenges of climate change.
Never were the innovative and creative minds of a century ago so relevant to the nation’s future.
Bruce Keith brings this important episode in the Glenkens story to life in his illustrated talk on the politicians, industrialists, entrepreneurs, civil and electrical engineers, and architects – many home-grown Scots – whose innovation and endeavour brought the Galloway Hydro-Electric Scheme to fruition.
Not forgetting, of course, the diligent and strenuous efforts of over 1,300 workers who, across the 400 square miles of river catchments, constructed 5 generating stations (Drumjohn was added in 1985), the 11 dams and 8 miles of pipelines, canals, aqueducts and tunnels – the Glenlee tunnel is 3.6 miles long and 6 inches wider than the Glasgow Underground – together with a massive barrage gate, to create one of the wonders of the modern age.
And it was completed on time and on budget – how’s that for project management?