The pioneering role of Scotland and Norway in the development of hydro-electric power is to be celebrated in a new digital partnership between the two nations, it has been announced.
The first minister, who is undertaking trade and political engagements in Norway over two days, announced the initiative at an international renewable energy conference in Bergen.
Hydro-power will be the focus of the first Digitising Heritage project, providing a unique online archive, cataloguing individual hydro sites across the world and capturing archival planning and architectural documents, technical and site data as well as archive images and film footage.
The site, to be launched later this year, is being developed by Historic Scotland in partnership with the Norwegian Museum of Hydropower and Industry and will enable users to get information about their local or global historic environment.
The first minister said: “Scotland has a long tradition of generating hydro-power, from its early beginnings in small-scale water-powered mills to the development of industrial hydro-electric schemes.
“Hydro continues to play an important role in Scotland, generating almost 40 per cent of Scotland’s renewable electricity output last year. This new project will capture the tremendous vision and feats of engineering of our forebears in Scotland and Norway. It will provide a wealth of information that can be used as an educational and research source.”
Randi Bartvedt, director of the Norwegian Museum of Hydropower and Industry said: “We are looking forward to continuing the good co-operation with Scotland and the digitising heritage project.”
David Fleetwood, who is leading the project for Historic Scotland said: “This is a unique opportunity to tell the extraordinary story of how Scotland and Norway pioneered the development of hydropower.”
