Tenders received for new UK hydro project

Six tenders have been submitted for the civil engineering and mechanical and engineering for the SSE Renewables project.

Coire Glas, located in the Great Glen between Fort William and Inverness, will be the first large-scale hydro pumped storage scheme to be built in the UK for more than 30 years. The 1500MW scheme will create enough long duration storage capacity to power three million homes for up to 24 hours.

The six shortlisted tenderers are:

For the civil engineering scope:

• Bechtel Ltd, Acciona Construcción SA and Webuild consortium
• BAM Nuttall Ltd, Eiffage Génie Civil SA and Marti Tunnel AG consortium
• Dragados SA and BeMo Tunnelling UK Ltd consortium
• Strabag UK Ltd

For the mechanical and electrical plant scope:

• Andritz Hydro GmbH and Voith Hydro GmbH & Co KG partnership
• GE Hydro France

It is expected that one preferred tenderer will be selected for the mechanical and electrical scope and two for the civil engineering works.

The preferred tenderers will work with the Coire Glas team on a programme of ground investigation works from July this year to autumn 2023, which will allow them to refine their proposed project designs.

The selection of the preferred civils tenderer, who will work with the chosen mechanical and electrical tenderer to construct Coire Glas on a turnkey basis, is scheduled for autumn 2023. The construction phase of the project is scheduled to commence in spring.

In April this year, Strabag was selected to undertake the exploratory works for the hydro scheme. The works, which are due to start this summer, include construction of 1km-long, 4m-diameter tunnel which will cut into the hillside towards the proposed location of the underground powerhouse.