A disused open-cast coal mine in Dumfries and Galloway is about to become the latest high-speed leg in Extreme E, the global off-road electric vehicle racing championship. The race aims to not only provide break-neck thrills but also draw attention to climate change and the potential of EVs.
Extreme E chose Glenmuckloch for its HydroX Prix race, said co-founder Ali Russell, because it "tells a story of a journey from fossil fuels to renewables”.
The site, owned by Buccleuch Estates is being developed as a pump-storage hydro facility – where energy from wind can be stored, by pumping water into a reservoir from which it can later be used to generate hydroelectric power.
Mr Russell said: “There’s a lot of wind energy in the area and when the grid is unable to take the wind energy, it’s effectively wasted – the energy is lost. So effectively what the project is looking to do is use this coal mine as a pump storage facility and what that will do is act as a battery.”
Extreme E’s 1.8-tonne off-road vehicles will race through a brooding, dramatic landscape, skidding and jumping across burns. Mr. Russell said: “The tracks are amazing. Because the cars are entering a mine, you’ve got elevation changes. The team is telling me this is going to be our most exciting track. There are all the challenges that create the jeopardy you want in racing – and specifically in off-road racing.”
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The Glenmuckloch races, on May 13 and 14, will be televised on STV and will also be viewable online, where Extreme-E already has a fanbase of over 130 million.
Extreme E races are just ten minutes long and each car has a team of two drivers, one female, and one male. “We’ve got,” said Mr Russell, “some of the best drivers in the world, the best teams in the world. Lewis Hamilton has a team, Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, all Formula 1 World Champions.”
But Extreme E is not just about the thrills. “What we are trying to do," said Mr Russell, "is to engineer a racing championship or sport that has purpose at its heart – and that purpose is shining the light on climate change and the environment. The importance of sustainability.”
Extreme E has already staged races in Greenland, the Atacama Desert, Senegal, and Saudi Arabia. The venues were chosen because they were sites that are dealing with environmental challenges - from rising sea levels to deforestation and desertification.
Mr Russell said: "What we do is work to find the right messages – and to deliver an entertainment proposition which uses men and women as drivers and as heroes, to demonstrate that EV technology can not only work in extreme locations but can be incredibly exciting, fast, great agility, immediate torque and performance and hugely entertaining.
A Scot himself, he said he had been looking for some time for a Scottish site - “and to have the race at home”.
“Scotland,” he said, “has led the world in many renewable technologies. It made a lot of sense. We wanted to have some closer-to-reach locations where we could tell a story of climate change on our doorstep.”
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The team started hunting in the Western Isles but ended up at Glenmuckloch, Dumfries, because, he said, of “its unique story”. “The landscape has been scarred by open cast coal mining from a previous generation and the area is looking to rejuvenate and develop. It’s a story of how communities are changing.”
The site is being developed as a pump-hydro electric facility by Foresight Foresight Energy Infrastructure Partners, who leased it from Buccleuch Estates in a high-profile £250 million deal last year.
The mine at Glenmuckloch was closed after the collapse of its owner ATH Resources in 2012, following which Buccleuch Estate it with plans of converting it into a green energy site.
Extreme E, said Mr Russell, had been working with schools and had attended public meetings in the community.
"These communities," he said, "were created around coal mining and when that stopped there was a lack of development. This is a second life that is coming back through the old coal mine. It just feels a wonderful story and one that we want to narrate and tell through sport.”
"I'm excited to be doing this and it’s going to be wonderful to show off the magnificence and beauty of this bit of the country to an audience of 130 million. This is a big, big proposition.”
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