Energy

Black-and-white image of a three-bladed windmill on a timber tower beside a wooden shed, with old wheels resting against the structures in open grassland.

Electric City: the North makes its own arrangements

Brora burns local coal, Melvich harnesses the wind, and Stroma makes its own arrangements. The North has bright ideas long before everyone gets connected.

A crew transfer vessel speeds across blue sea, leaving a foaming wake beside a turbine at Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm.

Offshore wind power: a new future rising from the sea

Once herring filled the harbour with work. Now offshore wind is bringing fresh opportunities to Wick, with benefits reaching across the North Highlands and far beyond.

Dounreay’s white domed reactor and surrounding buildings, viewed across a sheltered inlet framed by layered coastal rocks.

Nuclear power: an unexpected future on the north coast

Dounreay’s dome isn’t in most visitors’ Highland daydreams. But alongside an experiment burning peat, it promised something local families badly needed: a future here.

A folded Scotsman newspaper dated 18 July 1953 on a wooden table, displaying “Power from Peat Moors of Caithness”.

Peat: what if the peat power station at Altnabreac had worked?

At Altnabreac, peat promised electricity, employment and farmland beneath the moor. The experiment failed, but what might success have cost the North?

White wind turbines rise above golden moorland beside a gravel track, beneath a blue sky streaked with white clouds.

Wind power: see how energy generation shapes the north

North Highland onshore turbines could supply roughly a million homes’ annual electricity needs, while community funds help people here build a future.