Qualla: Storr Lochs Hydro-Electric Scheme

Storr Lochs Hydro-Electric Scheme: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1947 most of the Isle of Skye had no electricity. A few houses in Portree got power from a single diesel generator; the village of Broadford was wired to a cable that ran ten miles under the sea from a mainland power station; everyone else was lighting paraffin lamps and going to bed early. Five years later, on 31 May 1952, Lady Rachel Stuart pressed a button at Bearreraig Bay and started two Francis turbines. They were sufficient to power the entire island. Above them, on the cliff that separates the turbine house from the lochs that feed it, ran something almost as remarkable as the electricity itself: a standard-gauge funicular railway with 647 steps cast into the concrete beside it, carrying men and materials down a 350-foot drop to a beach where landing craft could not safely come.

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0

Storr Lochs Hydro-Electric Scheme: Johnston's Vision

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Storr Lochs scheme was a child of Tom Johnston, the Labour politician who served as Secretary of State for Scotland in Winston Churchill's wartime coalition. Johnston was a Highlands man by instinct and a pragmatist by training. He believed that the empty glens north of the H...

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0

Storr Lochs Hydro-Electric Scheme: A Cliff, a Funicular, and 647 Steps

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. The engineering problem at Storr was straightforward to state and difficult to solve. Loch Leathan and Loch Fada lay on the high ground between the road from Portree to Staffin and the sea. The best site for a turbine house was directly below them, on the shore at Bearreraig Bay....

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0

Storr Lochs Hydro-Electric Scheme: Opening Day, 1952

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. Construction began in early 1950. A dam was built across the Bearreraig River to raise Loch Leathan, with a long wing wall threading the boggy hillside for stability. A single pipeline ran down to two 1 MW Francis turbines - enough capacity to supply the whole island. The opening...

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0

Storr Lochs Hydro-Electric Scheme: Seventy Years Later

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the 2010s the Storr Lochs scheme was getting old. The Francis turbines were the originals from 1952. Adjustments required a human being on site, and the funicular still needed to bring people down to the turbine house for routine work. Scottish and Southern Energy, which had i...

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0