18 January 2012 Last updated at 04:03 ET

Scottish Water plans hydro power

Scottish Water announces plans to generate more of its own electricity using hydro power

Scottish Water has announced plans to generate its own electricity using hydro power.

Turbines driven by the force of water passing through supply pipes are to be installed at treatment works across the country.

Scottish Water has the biggest electricity bill in the country.

It said its new, small-scale hydro schemes would help keep costs down for consumers and would reduce carbon emissions.

The publicly-owned utility said its £20m hydro power generating scheme would reduce costs for water treatment by 10%.

Scottish Water said a lot of energy was required to treat water to meet the standards set out by the Drinking Water Quality Regulator.

It has identified more than 30 sites which could power the water treatment process in areas such as rural Lanarkshire, the Borders, Stirlingshire, Angus and Fife.

Ian McMillan, who is leading the building programme, said: "This is nothing new - our asset base is already generating 5% of our power requirements across Scotland and the investment will double that output.

"We've identified a number of potential sites and these will be whittled down to the best 20 or so small hydro schemes."

In addition to this project, Scottish Water Horizons, the commercial arm of Scottish Water, has recently installed a micro-turbine at the redundant Touch water treatment works in Stirling.

This is creating power which is then sold back to the National Grid.