SSE warns hydro plant may be shut for a year

Published on Monday 28 September 2009 23:13

SCOTTISH & Southern Energy yesterday warned its new Glendoe hydro station could be closed for more than a year after rock fall in August.

The first major UK hydro project to be completed in 50 years, Glendoe was closed less than two months after the Queen officially opened the 100-megawatt station at the end of June.

Yesterday, Perth-based SSE said investigations showed that the rock fall, in a tunnel carrying water between the reservoir and the power station, was "very substantial".

Contractors are now working on the site, near Fort Augustus, to establish how best to make repairs, but SSE warned it would not be generating "until well into 2010 at the earliest".

A spokesman said the company would provide a fuller update on Glendoe when it publishes interim results for the six months to 30 September in November.

Despite the problems at Glendoe, SSE said its first-half profits would be "significantly higher" than the start of last year, with a "moderate" increase expected for the full year.

The spokesman said that while lower wholesale prices were boosting retail margins, the results had been helped by a better operating performance.

Last year's interim profits were "exceptionally low", hit by the closure of the Medway gas-fired power station on the Isle of Grain and limited operation of the Ferrybridge coal fired power station in Yorkshire.

SSE also confirmed that the early stages of construction of the Greater Gabbard wind farm in the Thames Estuary had been hit after faulty welding was discovered on the turbines. The company said it was still confident that the facility, set to be the world's largest, would be completed on schedule in 2012.