Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered long duration electricity storage systems.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I am glad to have been able to bring forward this debate on long duration electricity storage systems. I would like to focus on pump storage and the cost-benefit of hosting that technology in the highlands of Scotland.

The highlands and islands hope to benefit from the new Prime Minister’s growth in every postcode plan, however we do not have a defence, artificial intelligence, tech or financial industry to rely on. Our major industry is tourism, which suffers from a short season and low pay in hospitality. It is a struggling industry.

I recently wrote to the Prime Minister and laid out some harrowing facts. Remote Scotland has a 30% higher cost of living and a 10% lower income than urban Scotland. We have seen a dramatic drop in school rolls and a 71% increase in the number of people over the age of 75. I represent Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire and it would be difficult to find another part of the UK with a greater interest in renewables.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

To give the hon. Gentleman encouragement, we see the incredible potential for this in Northern Ireland, where a £100 million joint venture on Islandmagee is set to build a massive 150 MW storage facility capable of powering 36,000 homes. Does the hon. Member agree the Government must aggressively support those multi-day storage systems right across the United Kingdom, working hand in hand with devolved nations to modernise our grid infrastructure?

[Mr MacDonald]

The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. There is not enough in it for the communities to benefit from. Pump storage seems to be as good a way of providing electricity that we could find.

In the highlands, we have the wind, water and geography that make the area so important for our national energy system. We have been producing hydroelectricity for the rest of the country for generations and we now have the opportunity to store much more of it. The highlands already generate 12 times the amount of electricity they need, but we have one of the highest levels of fuel poverty in Britain. Go figure, as my children would say.

When Alex Salmond was First Minister of Scotland, he declared that Scotland could become the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”. Yes, the hills of Scotland are covered in wind turbines, but they are manufactured abroad and are often owned by overseas utilities. From a multi-billion pound industry, Scotland’s communities got only £30 million of community benefit last year and the highlands got only £7 million. That is just £30 per head of population in the highlands.

The highlands already generate almost 8 GW of renewable electricity per year; roughly a third from hydroelectricity and two thirds from onshore wind. Even before factoring in pump storage, we play an important role in the electrification of the UK. I have said in this House before that I want the highlands to properly benefit from the enormous value of their natural resources. I was hopeful about onshore wind investment and the jobs and opportunities it could bring, but in practice that has been minimal. The proposed pump storage projects are now the only remaining chance I can see to bring proper money into my left-behind part of Britain.

Why does electricity storage really matter? Long duration storage has an important role in our energy future and the highlands have a particular ability to help deliver it. We need to be able to store electricity when there is plenty of it and to use it when we need it. Batteries play an important role in managing shorter periods, but we need technology that is capable of supplying electricity for much longer stretches.

Pump storage is a proven technology, capable of providing large amounts of electricity for long periods. These are long-life infrastructure assets, which are expected to operate for more than a century. They use electricity to pump water from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir; when electricity is required, water is released through the turbines. As people can imagine, with our geography the highlands is very well placed for these assets. Our lochs, hills and mountains allow us to create the height differences that pump storage requires. The technical term is hydraulic head. In simple terms, the greater the height difference between the reservoirs, the more energy that can be produced with the same amount of water.

This summer, Ofgem announced that it has provisionally approved three pump storage sites in the highlands: Coire Glas, near Invergarry; Loch Kemp, near Loch Ness; and Lochan na h-Earba, which is quite near Newtonmore. These three sites will produce a collective 4 GW of electricity, which is three times as much electricity as Greater Manchester uses. The development costs will be over £5 billion, which will make the entire scheme by far the biggest ever infrastructure investment ever seen in the highlands. There are also three more pump storage sites that are keen to get Ofgem’s go-ahead: Loch Fearna, near Invergarry; Loch Ericht; and Loch na Cathrach, on Loch Ness.