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The Galloway hydro-electric power scheme is a network of dams and hydro-electric
power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...
s in
Galloway Galloway ( ; ; ) is a region in southwestern Scotland comprising the counties of Scotland, historic counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. It is administered as part of the council areas of Scotland, council area of Dumfries and Gallow ...
, south west
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
. It was built between 1930 and 1936. The generating stations draw water from the River Ken, River Dee and
River Doon The River Doon (, ) is a river in Ayrshire, Scotland. Its course is generally north-westerly, passing near to the town of Dalmellington, and through the villages of Patna, Dalrymple, and Alloway, birthplace of Robert Burns. The source of the D ...
through reservoirs at
Loch Doon Loch Doon (, ) is a freshwater loch in Carrick, Scotland. It is considered relatively oligotrophic. The River Doon issues from its northern end, while the loch itself receives waters from Gala Lane and Loch Enoch (in the Galloway Hills) via Eg ...
, Kendoon, Carsfad, Clatteringshaws, and
Tongland Tongland, also spelt Tongueland () is a small village about north of Kirkcudbright, in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It lies on the west bank of the River Dee, Galloway, Dee near its confluence ...
. The unusual
modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
stations were designed by Scottish civil engineer, Sir Alexander Gibb. The scheme, which is today operated by Drax, can produce a total peak power of around 110
megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor o ...
, with an overall load factor of around 0.25.


History

The scheme was authorized by the Galloway Water Power Act on 10 May 1929, by which the Galloway Water Power Company was incorporated. Chairman of the board was former colonial administrator Lord Meston. Also on the board was
Robert Brand Robert Henry Brand, 1st Baron Brand, (30 October 1878 – 23 August 1963) was a British civil servant and businessman. Early life Brand was born on 30 October 1878. He was the fourth son of the former Susan Henrietta Cavendish and Henry Brand, ...
, managing director of the project's underwriter, Lazard Brothers and Company. Design was carried out by civil engineers
Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners was a British firm of consulting civil engineers, founded in 1922 by Sir Alexander Gibb, and initially headquartered in London before moving west to Reading in Berkshire in 1974 to the former site of Suttons Seeds. I ...
along with electrical engineer, William McLellan of
Merz & McLellan Merz and McLellan was a leading British electrical engineering consultancy based in Newcastle. History The firm was founded by Charles Merz and William McLellan in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1902 when McLellan joined Merz's existing firm establis ...
. Construction began three years later in 1932 and was completed in 1936. The scheme was made viable by the recent formation of the National Grid which made generation of electricity in remote areas useful. Hydro power was particularly helpful to this grid because of its ability to be turned on and off very quickly to meet peak demands (in contrast to oil and coal stations), and to meet the natural increase during the more energy demanding winter months. The total cost of the scheme was around three million pounds. At a cost of £29 per kilowatt of installed capacity, they were some of the least costly stations ever built in the UK. The scheme was extended in 1984 with the addition of the Drumjohn power station which made use of the existing needle valve where the water from Loch Doon and the Deuch feed into the Dee. This station has a capacity of just 2.3 megawatts, but was constructed largely using existing infrastructure. In 2018 Drax Group purchased the scheme, alongside a number of other assets, from then owners
Scottish Power Scottish Power Limited, trading as ScottishPower, is a vertically integrated energy company based in Glasgow, Scotland. It is a subsidiary of Spanish utility firm Iberdrola. ScottishPower is the distribution network operator for Central an ...
.


Architecture

The stations are generally white, Modernist structures, highly glazed and with large airy turbine halls. The designs were stylistically advanced for their time and can be viewed as some of Scotland's earliest modern buildings. The credit for the design is given to Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners, however it seems likely that the design received input from
Harold Tarbolton Harold Ogle Tarbolton FRIBA (1869–1947) was a 19th/20th century British architect, mainly working in Scotland. He was affectionately known as Tarrybreeks. In later life he went into partnership with Sir Matthew Ochterlony to create Tarbolto ...
, the architectural advisor to the scheme's "Amenities Committee". This committee was set up to "make to the Company such recommendations as they may think are reasonable and proper for the preservation of the beauty of the scenery" (from the 1929 Galloway water power act). Tarbolton was designer of the Pitlochry power station which bears some striking similarities to the Galloway turbine halls. Whilst no direct credit for the design work can be given to him, it is unlikely that he had no influence on the outcome. In their book ''Power from water'' (1960), two partners of Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners, Angus Paton, and J Guthrie Brown (the latter of whom is known to have worked on the Galloway scheme), write that "The architecture of the power stations, under the watchful eye of the amenity committee...was given the most careful attention." Parts of the scheme are now listed buildings, specifically the Glenlee Power Station and Bridge and the Tongland Power Station, Surge Tower and Valve House. In great contrast to the bright pristine nature of the stations, the dams are organic and entwined with the natural rock. They are generally
arch dam An arch dam is a concrete dam that is curved upstream in plan. The arch dam is designed so that the force of the water against it, known as hydrostatic pressure, presses against the arch, causing the arch to straighten slightly and strengtheni ...
s, curved in plan, bearing onto the side walls of the valleys except in those dams where only one side of the valley is suitable for bearing. In these latter cases, the end of the dam straightens out, and the last section of
gravity dam A gravity dam is a dam constructed from concrete or stone masonry and designed to hold back water by using only the weight of the material and its resistance against the foundation. Gravity dams are designed so that each section of the dam is ...
(where the weight of the dam itself resists the force of the water) then acts like a
buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...
to the more efficient arch dam.


Perceptions of the scheme

Local poet W.G.M. Dobie wrote:
A raider comes today who kills
The glories of our glens and hills
With unheroic Acts and Bills
And "private legislation":
The company promoters' pen
Will dam the Deugh and dam the Ken
And dam the Dee, - oh, damn the men
Who plan such desecration!


Generating stations

The six generating stations, from north to south, are:


References


Notes


Sources

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External links


Visit Tongland Power Station
- Drax Power

An account of the Galloway Scheme from 1937 {{Scottish energy Hydroelectric power stations in Scotland Buildings and structures in Dumfries and Galloway Economy of Dumfries and Galloway Galloway 1930s establishments in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Dumfries and Galloway