You can now take a trip into the heart of our iconic ‘Hollow Mountain’ power station in Scotland – without leaving your home.
Scottish Renewables – the voice of Scotland’s renewable energy industry – has launched Renewables360. The unique project enables Google Street View users to go off-road and step inside a number of “amazing” clean energy projects in Scotland.
The projects in the spotlight include Cruachan Power Station, Drax’s renewable pumped storage hydro plant that lies deep within a mountain in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.
Using images taken with 360-degree cameras, viewers can tour Cruachan’s Turbine Hall, sited hundreds of feet underground.
Other featured sites include the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm near Aberdeen, the UK’s first large-scale, high-temperature water source heat pump and the one of the UK’s tallest onshore wind turbines.
The 10 green energy projects and sites appear as blue dots on Google Maps and are visible to anyone browsing Google Street View. They’re brought together in a hub on the Renewables360 home page.
Claire Mack, Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables, said: “The energy industry is central to all our lives, but until now the way in which electricity and heat are generated has been something of a mystery to the public.
“With 350 member companies (including Drax), we’re used to visiting the amazing places where clean energy is generated. Google now gives us the opportunity to share that experience with the rest of the world.
“The images that are now available for the world to view are breathtaking and take the public to places they would never otherwise be able to visit.”
Drax has ambitious plans to expand Cruachan Power Station, through the construction of a new 600 MW power station. Built adjacent to the existing underground plant, the new power station would effectively more than double the site’s total generation capacity to more than 1 GW. Find out more about the Cruachan Expansion Project.
To book a guided tour of Cruachan and walk through the ‘Hollow Mountain’ in real-life, visit the Visit Cruachan website
Media contacts:
Aidan Kerr, Senior External Affairs Manager
E: [email protected]
T: 07849090368
