Alex Neil, Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment has introduced a Bill to protect and develop Scotland’s water resources – the Water Resources (Scotland) Bill.
He says that the new law is designed to ensure that Scotland’s water has a sustainable future helping to boost our low carbon economy and creating jobs.
The Bill aims to build Scotland’s water industry with knowledge and expertise in water management.
It has ambitions to underline the world-wide contribution Scotland might make in areas such as water technology, governance, management and regulation.
A range of measures to ensure Scotland’s water resource is managed efficiently and to the benefit of Scotland, are also included in the Bill.
An expert group, The Hydro Nation Forum, drawn from the water industry and other interested parties, will help shape the delivery of the Hydro Nation programme.
In our view, while lost ground cannot be recovered in terms of what has already been sold, any new reservoirs built for hydro-electricity generation should be seen, owned and managed as part of Scotland’s water resources.
The current separation of water used for power generation and water used for other purposes is unhelpful and creates an economic vulnerability we could do without.
It is also not impossible that new reservoirs built for hydro power – since all modern stations use the pumped return system – might be designed and enabled also to feed water supplies.
The ‘Hydro Nation’ tag Mr Neil is pumping out in relation to this Water Resources Bill cannot be justified if we do not include in that vision of ourselves, our ownership of the water that drives the power we need.
The Cabinet Secretary says that the Bill: ‘…will build on Scottish Water’s success as a public sector organisation ensuring it makes best use of its assets for commercial purposes and accelerates renewable energy development.’
He commits the Scottish Government to: ‘actively support our water industry including our many SME water businesses to develop in both domestic and export markets.’
The issue of exemptions from approval to take water
There are obvious concerns to be explored around Section 7 of the Bill – Exemptions from approval.
This describes the collection and taking of water from Scotland’s water resources (a ‘qualifying abstraction’) which do not require government approval.
Section 7 of the Bill says:
‘A qualifying abstraction is exempt if it is carried out for the sole or principal purpose of—
(a) generating electricity by hydropower,
(b) irrigating agricultural or horticultural land, or
(c) operating—
(i) a fish farm, or
(ii) a quarry or a coal or other mine. ‘
The ungoverned ability of owners of existing hydro-electricity reservoirs to collect and draw water from natural sources to add to their reservoirs is a product of an earlier time that requires rethinking today.
There have already been problems with the diversion of burns into a collection system for a power generation plant under a foreign owner.
Equally, the exemption =from approval of drawinfg off water from natural resources to feed fish farms has in some cases caused the failure of small salmon rivers whose flow has been artificially reduced in this way.
The issue here is what is wrong with the requirement to seek approval?
A universal need for approval of the abstraction of water would see any reasonable request granted and the greater public interest protected in appropriate cases that, at the moment, run ungoverned.
There is no defensible reason for any exemptions from approval here except, in some degree, 7 (b) above ‘ ‘irrigating agricultural or horticultural land’.
Clearly in times of climatic distress, shortage of food and threats to animal welfare, farmers and food producers should be able to take what water they need from natural resources. Even then., approval should be the norm. It is quite possible to describe threshold conditions which would trigger the right, without prior approval, to tap into water resources to protect agriculture and horticulture – and limiting ‘horticulture’ in such situations to ‘plants produced for food’.
Issue around approval of water abstraction
In Section 10 ‘Factors as to approval’ the Bill states:
(1) In deciding whether to approve a qualifying abstraction, the Scottish Ministers must
have regard to—
(a) the applicant’s financial position, ‘
The bill does not indicate quite how this factor, at either end of the scale of wealth, would impact upon a decision to approve – or why it should do so.
This obvious requires clarification.
A Bill is only a Bill
Bills are draft legislation to be improved and amended in their passage into law through the correction of flaws in their framing and through political amendments in the parliamentary negotiation process.
But even as a draft, this law has – even at a preliminary and cursory glance – more than enough weaknesses in conception to undermine the grandiloquent statement made in its support by the Cabinet Secretary who launched it.
He declared that: ‘The Bill will underline the world-wide contribution Scotland has to make in areas such as water technology, governance, management and regulation.’
Not in this state it doesn’t and we have only begun to scrutinise it.
Note: Here is the full text of the Bill as presented: Water Resources (Scotland) Bill
Very interesting, trying to get my head round it, Tom Johnstone (After leaving Parliament he was Chairman of the Scottish National Forestry Commission (1945-48), Chairman of North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (1946-59), Chancellor of Aberdeen University (1951-65) and governor of the British Broadcasting Board (1955-56).) led the way at one point for Hydro Power, I might be wrong, no public money was spent, the profit paid of the debt very quickly, then sold of cheaply by Thatcher to give us all cheap energy.
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‘since all modern stations use the pumped return system’ – if this is a suggestion that pumped storage is the order of the day, I’d be surprised because a good few recent hydro power projects seem to have been ‘run of the river’ which, by definition, can’t be pumped storage.
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My understanding is there is a limit on how much wind power can be connected live to the grid, go above and the grid becomes unstable. Hydro powered by a dam is very stable and the limiting factor is the volume of water. Correct me if I am wrong but Cruachan has started pumping and generating at the same time and a new cavern is in the planning stage along with building a bigger dam. All hydro stations are being reassessed for environmental damage, in America some have been dismantled http://vimeo.com/31305629. There are many good solutions out there, some will not make corporation the profit and will undermined their monopoly.
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Are you sure about this, John? – pumping & generating at the same time doesn’t seem to make any sense, and building a bigger dam seems highly improbable, as 10% of the reservoir replenishment comes from feeder canals tapping streams around the mountain – and they’d be too low if the dam was higher, whereas there doesn’t appear to be room to enlarge the reservoir by building a new dam significantly ‘downstream’ from the existing one.
It’s designed to sell power to the grid at times of peak demand, and replenish the reservoir by using cheap off-peak power to drive the turbines as pumps. Apparently it also provides an almost instant (2 minutes from standing, 30 seconds if spinning) emergency power supply to the grid to ‘kick start’ any other power stations in the event of a major shut-down preventing them from drawing the electricity from the grid that they would need to power-up again.
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Reading my comment does not make sense, but the whole nature of the market has evolved. When I was told they were pumping and generating at the same time I did not beleave either. Two different people have told me about the expansion, I know that still does not make it true. Hopefully someone in the known will correct me if I am wrong.
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You can pump and generate at the same time. From memory, there are four turbines in the turbine hall under Cruachan. You could have two pumping while two are generating though I’m not sure why that would be desirable.
As to the amount of wind that can be connected to the grid, I was under the misapprehension that there is a finite limit to how much wind can be connected but the experience from Spain suggests that, though there may be an upper limit, it is much higher than was previously thought and the answer is to have either lots of pumped storage hydro or to have excellent interconnectors so you can draw power from adjacent regions when wind generation in your own region is depressed.
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Mind you – that depends on their being separate access tunnels to the turbines. If all turbines are fed by the same tunnel then you couldn’t pump and generate at the same time.
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There are two tunnels feeding four generators and one tail race. So in theory two can generate and two can pump. Interesting to know the hydraulics of water flow in the tail race if they do pump and generate at same time. As I said its what I was told, yes I do find it hard to beleave, but the “unstable” wind generation has brought in a new vairable in to the market. Yet again someone in the know could correct me, years ago I read the maximum of wind power on a grid could only be 16% and then the excess would be exported to a more stable grid. Are we not being conected up to Norway. I may be getting my facts wrong, but there should be an open and transparent debate on energy production.
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Stealth entry by the back door eh…you wee rascals.
As I said months ago the Scottish Government mean to flood more glens to provide pumped storage facilities for energy storage, energy generated by large commercial windfarms.
Given the huge environmental footprint of resevoirs of any type…this needs to be taken into consideration when folk quote wind as having a small environmental footprint…it does not…whether we are talking conventional back up or pumped storage…large scale commercial wind causes large scale damage to our uninhabited more natural locations.
I also hasten to add that the recently anounced connection to Norway will also use their spare storage facility or planned storage facility….much as Denmark is doing now…generate/export/store/release/buy back…madness.
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“madness” well put.
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EURELECTRIC position “Trade-offs between environmental legislation and the low-carbon agenda”The 2009 Renewables Energy Directive stipulates the need to support “the use of energy storage systems for integrated intermittent production of energy from renewable sources.” (wind) Yet regulatory obstacles such as disproportionate implementation and too broad interpretation of environmental legislation are impeding the further development of hydropower in Europe”
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Again Euroelectrics position:”Policymakers must address the conflicting objectives of the low-carbon agenda and the environmental agenda”
So there we have it, the big businesses are trying their damdest to de-regulate or change current environmental legislation to allow damage to the environment…talk about madness…Not content with messing up the planet already…they intend to mess it up some more…please do not give me the cop out of “this is to protect the planet” what is the point in europe destroying more wilderness areas to counteract US/China/India emmissions when they are the current culprits. Bild a wind farm/sponsor a flooded glen !!!
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