Who does ben cruachan power station supply?

Answer 1

Cruachan Power Station is used primarily to regulate the National Grid. No single company is supplied from this station. It is tasked to provide additional supply if the National Grid requires it (To maintain frequency and load balancing during periods of peak demand or if another generator suddenly trips offline).

An important property of this station is that it is used for black start. This means that this station can start itself with no external power supply (unlike most other stations). As such, Cruachan makes a lot of revenue simply from having the ability to supply mains to other stations should there be regional/national blackout, in turn allowing the National Grid and Generators to get back on it's knees after a blackout. It therefore has contractual obligations to Nation Grid to supply balancing and Black Start capability to the grid on request - This is where it makes a lot of it's money.

If the station does have enough spare capacity outside it's contractual obligations, it may fulfil short term contracts from the Nation Grid to supply additional electricity at a given, usually market driven, rate. During periods of low national demand for electricity (where the price per Mega Watt Hour is reduced), Cruachan will buy electricity from the National Grid in order to pump water back up to the reservoir. It will then sell electricity that it generates from this water at a more expensive rate during peak demand - again, as long as it does not affect the ability of the station to fulfil it's black start availability obligations.