Laggan Dam Spilling

If you use head of water to generate electricity this is what you don't want. This is literally thousands of kilowatt hours going down the drain because the reservoir has no more capacity and nature dictates that the water must spill and take a direct route to the sea without hydro electric intervention. Come summer and early autumn we will see the original flood plains re-emerge and the reservoir will again look like a meandering stream. To run this scheme effectively calls for considerable forward planning, strategy on metal production at the smelter (there is no point in producing aluminium if the world price is low and you have to pay a premium for imported electricity because your reservoir is low). It probably pays to check the weather forecast too.

Anyway, on such a morning this has got to be the most impressive man made spectacle in Lochaber.