Interview: Powerdown Officer Kirsty MacLennan

My name is Kirsty MacLennan, and I’m from Callanish but I work up in Ness for the Galson Estate Trust as a Powerdown Officer. Um, the Powerdown Project started sort of May last year, and the main aim of it is to reduce carbon emissions throughout the estate area, looking at anything from insulation to forms of travel to reducing food miles, so increasing local food that’s produced in the area, um, some other projects like that, so the school polytunnels to electric vehicles. Uh, I look at proposals of any sort of projects, and then sort of see if they’re viable within the estate area and try and find funding for them, and then go on to actually put the proposal into action, and work on the project.

At the moment we’ve got a polytunnel project with a school which is – there’s three schools in the area who have got funding for polytunnels. So, um, Lionel at the moment, their polytunnel’s up and constructed, and they’re just, sort of, starting to get, to get growing in it. And then Barvas is sort of half-way through construction and Airidhantuim is, hopefully it’ll start within the next two weeks to a month, uh, to get theirs up. And it’s just to educate kids that the, where fruit and veg come from, it doesn’t just appear on their shelves in the supermarket.

Um we also work with schools to look at any sort of fuel-reducing teaching about renewables and new technologies that have been produced. And there’s also the electric vehicle project which is a project we’re, um, we’re hoping to get funding for an electric vehicle. We’ve already got funding from Community Energy Scotland and, uh, the local council, um, to get funding for a wind turbine which will power the electric vehicle. The electric vehicle will hopefully have a range of about 100 miles, and, um, it’s just to educate people on other forms of local carbon, instead of using, uh, heavy fuel emission petrol and diesel vehicles. Um, it’s a lot cheaper to run as well. Maybe more expensive to buy but it’s a lot cheaper to run.

And another project that we’ve got running is to increase, uh, local food produce. We’ve got a community market going that happens every second week during sort of the end of – sort of August to October where people can come along and sell their local produce and people can buy that.

Uh, I enjoy my job very much, sort of, in a very vibrant and fast-moving industry at the moment with renewables, and just straight out of uni I couldn’t have asked for a better job to be in, really. And, it’s been really good. A fast learning curve, but enjoyed it.