Balmore Water Treatment Works (WTW) is Scottish Water’s largest water treatment works. It provides clean water to approximately 850,000 homes across Scotland’s central belt.

Balmore WTW is also one of Scottish Water’s most energy intensive assets with annual electricity usage of over 20,000,000 kWh. As part of their net zero ambitions, Scottish Water Horizons, a subsidiary of Scottish Water, engaged with their solar PV framework contractors to design and build a solar farm on 44,300m² of available land throughout the site.

The £4.5m investment by Scottish Water Horizons sees 8,512 ground-mounted solar Photovoltaic (PV) panels installed at Balmore.

Principal Contractor:

FES Group was delighted to be awarded the contract as Principal Contractor for the design and build of this Solar PV Farm via a competitive tendering process.  As Principal Contractor, FES Group was responsible for all site operations, including set up, site rules, traffic management and welfare etc. as detailed in the Construction Phase Plan. This detailed plan ensured that all works were delivered safely and with minimum disruption to the day-to-day operations of the Water Treatment Works.

Project Description:

Design and build of ground mounted 5.5MW Solar PV Scheme to be installed on two areas of land within the overall site boundary. Independent Connection Provider contestable works on behalf of the client involved 2km fibre comms network back to the Balmore primary substation and construction of a new intake substation for Balmore WTW on behalf of Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN), including a new SPEN adopted HV switchboard.

The site is fed electricity by its own HV ring. As a National Electricity Registration Scheme (NERS) accredited HV installer, FES was able to offer an original design concept which ensured minimum disruption to this critical asset when connecting the solar PV farm. The solar panels feed DC current into two Medium Voltage Power Stations (MVPS), which invert the power to AC and then feed into the HV ring main on site. All the HV works were handled by FES’s in-house team.

Sustainability:

The Solar PV farm will:

• offset 20 per cent of the electricity required to operate the facility
• generate 4 GWh of energy a year – that’s enough energy to power around 1,300 standard UK homes
• save around 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per annum

Full Turnkey Service:

FES is providing operation and maintenance services for 2 years from the handover date. We have set up remote monitoring to monitor the power generation and inverters on site.

Client Feedback:

“It is a pleasure working with FES on the Scottish Water Framework. They operate like an extension of our team and understand our business goals, ensuring that they deliver critical projects like the one at Balmore on time and on budget. The Solar PV system at Balmore is our largest installation to date and FES fully understood the restrictions encountered whilst working within such a critical Scottish Water asset. FES adapted and dealt with any Health and Safety and Construction issues timeously to keep the project on track and achieved switch on as per the original programme dates.”

Ian Piggott, Senior Project Manager, Scottish Water