Abstract :
With hydro-electric schemes in the Highlands, amenity and the preservation of salmon fisheries are of great importance. Fish passes and hatcheries have been built and water falls have been opened. There is a dam of pre-stressed concrete and the use of wet ground blast-furnace slag cement in a large gravity dam is a promising development. Over 100 miles of tunnel have been driven and work is in hand on about a further 30 miles. The largest individual water-turbine output is 40 MW and the highest head of water employed is 1 362 ft. For the year 1955ߝ56, the hydro-electric plant capacity is about 634 MW and the annual output about 1 620 million kWh; the coal equivalent of this output is about 960000 tons, or over a fortnight´s production of the Scottish coal pits. The 1955ߝ56 output of electricity is likely to be doubled in the ensuing ten years. In 1948, one-half of the total population of the supply area, including 93% of the farms and 99% of the crofts, were without electricity supply mains. A series of comprehensive distribution schemes are being carried out and half the farms and crofts and seven-eighths of the population are now supplied. There is scope for developing 2000 MW of pumped storage in the Highlands between, say, 1961 and 1975, and developments in the remoter future could be much greater.
