Glen Almond is located just 8km North of Crieff, Perthshire, a 90 minute drive from Glasgow, Edinburgh and the central belt.

The glen runs from West to East, with the River Almond rising in the water shed north of a Munro in the glen - Ben Chonzie. The River Almond drops from approximately 650 meters above sea level at the head of the glen to 220 meters at Newton Bridge where the only road access exists.

It is considered to be a geographically isolated location and is sparsely populated with only 7 dwellings in a glen which is 16km long. While there is no mobile phone reception and little terrestrial television coverage there is a single-phase, 11kV power line runing from Buchanty, 5km away, to halfway up the glen to supply theses properties with power.

The glen itself has a very gentle gradient, significant distance has to be covered across the Glen for sufficient height gain, which is one the requirements for a small scale hydro scheme which does not have a large available flow. Although a run of river scheme is possible here, there would need to be a significant length of installed Penstock to provide the head required. To the North and South of the glen are numerous corries (a circular hollow in the side of a hill or mountain) which have streams flowing down into the River Almond. These corries provide catchment areas for rainfall with the water flowing directly into the streams on the hillside or soaking into the ground, providing some above ground storage. Rising to over 200 meters above the floor of the glen in places, they offer the potential of high heads that are useful for small scale hydro schemes. The corries have some marshy sections allowing some limited storage however the streams in corries are considered to be flashy in their flow patterns, generally matching the precipitation that falls on the ground. The picture below shows one of the corries that we have investigated over the course of this project and is typical of the glen.

The glen is no stranger to hydro generation - back in the 1940s an off grid small scale hydro scheme was installed in a local property at Auchnafree. Over the years, a number of upgrades have taken place to the plant but it is still generating power for the property it serves, just as it did when it was first commissioned. Later on in the 1950's when the Breadalbane Hydro scheme was built by the former North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board (NOSHEB), a tunnel was dug under the hills, southwards to the man made Loch Lednock. Still to this day, a large majority of the flow from the head of the glen is diverted into Loch Lednock, helping to supply the large scale hydro generation station on the north west bank of Loch.

While there is no fishing on the River Almond, grouse shooting is available from one estate and sheep are used for grazing in an effort to manage the natural plantlife and levels of ground cover.