News
21/1/10: Scottish Government publishes latest Hydrobot report
The Scottish Government today published Nick Forrest Associates and Highland-Eco Design's report, The Employment Potential of Scotland's Hydro Resource. To view the report click here. The study is accompanied by a Ministerial Policy Statement agreed by both the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism. The statement is cautious, voicing SEPA's concern about cumulative environmental effects of large numbers of new hydro schemes. The statement can be viewed here.
27/10/09: Scottish Hydro Jobs Report
A recent collaboration between Nick Forrest Associates and Highland-Eco Design has revealed the potential of hydro in Scotland to create jobs over the coming decades. The Employment Potential of Scotland's Hydro Resource was completed this month and should be published within the next quarter. The results cannot be publicised at this time, but it is clear that even under the most conservative rate of development, the hydro industry will generate a significant proportion of the Green Jobs, both short and long-term, predicted for Scotland.
18/3/09: Scottish Renewables Annual Conference 2009
Nick Forrest was pleased to present updated findings from the Scottish Hydropower Resource Study today, at the annual conference of professional association Scottish Renewables. The findings of the Study last year did not include un-official areas of grid congestion in Scotland which are currently leading to significant delays in grid-connection approvals. However, Nick demonstrated that if rough zones of congestion are overlaid upon Hyrobot's site predictions, the national predicted hydro resource drops from 657MW to 305MW.
Results were also shown for an analysis of the impact that a range of Feed-In Tariffs would have on the national hydro resource. It was demonstrated that such a tariff would more than double the national resource, and the effect would continue until the tariff exceeded 20p/kWh. Nick offered his services for the consultation into Feed-In Tariffs, expected to conclude early next year.
1/9/08: Scottish Hydropower Resource Study launched
The Scottish Hydropower Resource Study’s final report was released on 2nd September 2008 by Jim Mather MSP, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism. To read the government press release click here. The Scottish Hydropower Resource Study is available here.
25/5/08: Scottish Hydropower Resource Study
Nick Forrest Associates Ltd recently undertook a survey of Scotland's hydro potential on behalf of the Scottish Government. In collaboration with SISTech Ltd and Black & Veatch Ltd, we used a model developed by Nick Forrest, which identifies all financially viable sites within a catchment. See below for news of how you can get the results from Hydrobot® for your area.
The study will aggregate potential across catchments, and identify which legislative or economic constraints should be addressed to enable the development of our nation's hydro resource. The report will be completed in June 2008.
25/5/08: Conferences
Nick Forrest presented at Scottish Renewables Annual Conference 2008, as part of the Hydro Workshop. After speaking about the Scottish Hydropower Resource Study, Nick took part in a lively panel debate on the future of hydro in Scotland. There was also discussion of the forthcoming web-based service using Hydrobot®.
Nick delivered updated results at All-Energy 08 in Aberdeen, again in the Hydro stream. The panel were introduced by David Williams of the British Hydropower Association, and Gareth Harrison of Edinburgh University introduced several of his current and former students. Nick's presentation on Hydrobot® and the Scottish Hydropower Resource Study was complemented by Niall Duncan's account of his catchment-based hydro model, which uses many of the methods employed by Hydrobot® but examines catchment drainage and climate change in more detail. Niall Duncan is currently undertaking a PhD at Edinburgh University. Also presenting were Jeff Steynor, another Edinburgh Uni student, talking about a site-specific model that allows more efficient site design in order to squeeze every last bit of value from a hydro scheme. Chris Brett of Interhydro gave a case study of a current hydro scheme in an environmentally sensitive area, where ingenious and innovative methods were used to instal a 1MW scheme while minimising the negative impacts.
3/4/08: Online pre-feasibility surveys coming soon!
Hydrobot® is the model being used by Nick Forrest Associates to model Scotland's hydro potential. The model covers all scales of hydro, and is applied over areas of 1km2, 25km2 or whole regions. The output will include maps of identified sites with a pre-feasibility study of each site's generation potential, including a financial assessment based on user-defined preferences.
The Hydrobot® service will be available for use through a web-interface that will be released on this website. The scheduled release date is the end of October 2008. Watch this space!