Nevis Range Mountain Resort

The Nevis Range Hydro scheme provides power for operating the gondola at the Nevis Range Mountain Resort. The project is located on the Allt Choille-rais Burn on a subsidiary ridge of Aonach Mor and lies within the Ben Nevis and Glen Coe National Scenic Area.

Green Cat were contracted to provide the feasibility assessment, EIA assessment, consenting, CAR Licence application, ongoing liaison with regulatory bodies, detailed scheme design, technical procurement services and client’s engineer services. The project was commissioned in December 2016 and is currently operational.

The key elements of this project are:

INTAKE STRUCTURE
The single intake is 15m by 2.5m and spans the river, encompassing a 2.5m x 1m self-cleaning inclined alpine screen.

PENSTOCK
The pipeline is 1,410m in length with a head of 310m from intake to powerhouse. The upper, low pressure section is HPPE and the lower, higher pressure section ductile iron (DI).

POWERHOUSE
The building is situated upstream of the existing Rio Tinto Alcan hydro scheme intake. It houses two twin Pelton turbines with a total generation capacity of 1.1MW.

ENERGY GENERATION
The scheme supplies energy to the Nevis Range Mountain Resort via a private 11kV
underground cable. All surplus energy is exported to the grid. The predicted Average Annual Energy Production (AAPE) is 3,315MWh.

CONSTRUCTION
To minimise environmental impact during construction on the upper sections, a walking excavator was used and materials and pipe were transported by helicopter.