Father and son joy at Laid hydro scheme win

A HYDRO project by a Laid father and son has won a prestigious green energy award.

The Allt an Lagain scheme, constructed by Hugh and Michael Maclellan, came top in the sustainable development category of the Scottish Green Energy Awards, run by Scottish Renewables.

The pair were presented with the award last Thursday at a black-tie ceremony held at the Edinburgh International Conference centre and hosted by writer and comedian Jo Caulfield.

The privately-funded 95kw scheme is on the Allt an Lagain river at Laid. Construction work started in 2019 and took 15 months to complete. It has now operated for 18 months.

All the power is exported to the National Grid and the scheme is capable of powering most of the north-west corner in the parish of Durness.

Michael said after the win: "The real winner here is the Laid community. There are very few projects of our scale that offer a community benefit, but ours pays 36 per cent higher than the recommended £5,000mw community payment contribution offered by larger developers.

"Our legal case sets a precedent for other crofters to follow. We hope other crofters have confidence to do similar projects despite potentially significant challenges.

"We are truly thankful to our friends and family for the help we had during the build, in particular; Irene Hendy and Winnie Maclellan as well as Claire and Julie Maclellan.

"For us now it’s back to the day job of maintaining the hydro scheme."

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