Press Release from Highlands Rewilding

Solar renewables entrepreneur, Jeremy Leggett, warns that Loch Ness hydro project is an inappropriate mega-development that could devastate Scotland’s irreplaceable habitats 

• Loch Ness to become quasi-tidal, with huge volumes of water being moved, causing regular water fluctuations of over half a metre. 
• Hydro project could cause devastating impacts to Loch Ness biodiversity. 
• Glen Earrach’s ecological surveys are inadequate. 

A Scottish rewilding organisation led by Dr Jeremy Leggett, has lodged a formal objection to the controversial Glen Earrach Pumped Storage Hydro Scheme, warning that the project could cause “significant biodiversity loss” across Loch Ness and surrounding habitats critical to Scotland’s climate commitments. 

The company has raised serious concerns about the £1.5 billion development, arguing that inadequate environmental surveys have failed to capture the true ecological impact on one of Scotland’s most iconic landscapes. 

Dr Jeremy Leggett, founder and CEO of Highlands Rewilding and founder of Solarcentury, has condemned the project. 

“I wouldn’t be restoring nature in the Highlands of Scotland if it was not for my career in renewable energy, but these plans for Glen Earrach give renewable energy a bad name. They threaten to draw down Loch Ness on an industrial scale, placing salmon, fragile habitats, and the tourism economy at risk. Scotland’s path to net-zero must not come at the expense of its greatest natural treasures. This stands out as exemplifying a UK energy policy favouring big engineering over efficiency and distributed renewables. We must choose technologies that accelerate climate solutions while enhancing biodiversity and protecting iconic landscapes. That is the true test of responsible energy transition. On that test, Glen Earrach fails.” 

The Glen Earrach Energy Pumped Storage Hydro (PSH) Development Appendices on Water Resources suggest that weekly water fluctuations caused by Glen Earrach, along with 4 other consented PSH schemes, will regularly exceed the 0.5 meter threshold during peak months. When this happens, research suggests that invertebrate communities will be significantly and negatively impacted. 

Glen Earrach’s prediction that the impact of the fluctuations in water at Loch Ness will be “minor” is based on inadequate surveys. The developers Environmental Impact Assessment Report, is based on surveys at only 12 sampling locations along the entire 80km shore of Loch Ness; too few to reveal which species would be affected. Highlands Rewilding’s two eDNA surveys revealed DNA from 41 named invertebrate species in water samples from the Loch, only 7 of which were found in the Glen Earrach surveys. 

Several of these species are rare, including two nationally scarce species (mayfly Ameletus inopinatus and caddisfly Apatania wallengreni). Highlands Rewilding have also identified freshwater lampreys, where Grotaig burn meets Loch Ness, but these rare fish were not found by the Glen Earrach surveys. 

These changes in water levels could have further devastating impacts on the fragile and complex ecology of Loch Ness through impacts to the thermal stratification, disrupting a currently stable thermocline of the Loch. 

The project will further destroy 81.3 hectares of blanket bog and cause the ecological destruction of Loch nam Breac Dearga, an almost pristine 24 hectare mountain loch supporting protected otters, water voles, and rare montane plants including the endangered Whortle-leaved Willow, Alpine Bistort, and Cloudberry. Ancient woodland near Loch Ness will be removed despite supporting multiple bat species, yet no bat surveys have been conducted within this habitat. 

The organisation also questions seismic risk assessments given the project’s location on the Great Glen fault line and raises flood risks to Inverness from modifications to the loch’s weir system. 

“This scheme will lead to significant loss of biodiversity in some of Scotland’s most precious habitats,” concludes Dr Penelope Whitehorn, Co-Chief Scientist at Highlands Rewilding. “We urge decision-makers to reject this application and prioritise genuinely sustainable energy solutions.” 

For more information and interviews, please contact: frances.mills@highlandsrewilding.co.uk 

1. Smith, B.D., Maitland, P.S. and Pennock, S.M. (1987). A Comparative Study of Water Level Regimes and Littoral Benthic Communities in Scottish Lochs. Biological Conservation 39: 291-316. 

Supporting quotes: 

“Our main concerns include the unknown impact of PSH on salmon smolts during the downstream, spring, migration period. The volumes of water moved by these schemes are huge. During pumping the Glen Earrach scheme alone will move more than four times the mean flow in the River Ness, and up to ten times the low water flow which often occurs in May, a critical month for salmon smolt migration.” Brian Shaw, Director, Ness District Salmon Fishery Board. 

“The geological foundations of Glen Earrach proposal are very poorly known and have been surveyed only briefly in 1983. No update has been published and current surveying seems simplistic. A warning comes from Glen Doe on the opposite side of Loch Ness, where brief geological surveying failed to spot a fault which later collapsed and blocked the hydro tunnel causing years of delay and litigation.” Stuart Haszeldine OBE FRSE C.Geol. Professor of Geology,University of Edinburgh.