A power station in Argyll and Bute has reached its 50th anniversary, ScottishPower has announced.

The Cruachan Power Station near Oban is located inside the mountain of Ben Cruachan.

At full operation, the facility can meet the power demands of over 200,000 homes.

Opened by the Queen on 15 October 1965, Cruachan took six years to build and a workforce of 4,000.

Over 220,000 cubic metres of rock was blasted and drilled by explosives experts, creating a 1km cavern inside the mountain to house the turbines and a network of pipes and tunnels.

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It stores water in an upper reservoir, ready to release and generate power when demand form homes and businesses is high. When demand is low, Cruachan takes surplus electricity from the grid to pump water from Loch Awe back up to the reservoir.

Hugh Finlay, Generation Director at ScottishPower, said: "ScottishPower has invested significantly in Cruachan, meaning the station will play a pivotal role in supplying electricity in Scotland for decades to come.

"We are also investigating the potential of doubling the capacity of the station, because we believe that pumped storage hydro power plants can have an even bigger role to play in supporting the growth of renewable energy."

(LM/CD)