Deep within the granite of Ben Cruachan lies a project that was once dismissed as too ambitious, too bold for its time. Sixty years on, the same site is not only still operating but has become a rare blend of infrastructure, community anchor, and strategic asset.
What makes Cruachan different is not just the scale but the originality of its design. Conceived in the 1930s but only realised decades later, the scheme carved out a machine hall inside the mountain itself, with turbines capable of shifting water from a high reservoir back into Loch Awe almost instantly.
At its peak, the construction demanded a workforce of 1,500, removing more than 200,000 square metres of rock to create chambers of cathedral-like dimensions. When it opened in 1965, it was the first reversible pumped storage station of its scale anywhere in the world.
Drax acquired the asset from ScottishPower in 2018 and is now investing £80 million to ensure its long-term role in the energy system.
Drax Group plc (LON:DRX), trading as Drax, is a power generation business. The principal downstream enterprises are based in the UK and include Drax Power Limited, which runs the biomass fuelled Drax power station, near Selby in North Yorkshire.
