As I sat on the five-and-a-half hour train from Glasgow to Mallaig, I watched the open-cast grave of a way of life roll by; reduced to rubble and left for tourists to gawp at, preserved for aesthetics. By car the journey takes just a little over two hours, but the train carriages wistfully meander through the hills to allow one to fully take in the splendour of their surroundings.

There is only one train line and so only one set of carriages can make the journey at any one time, past the West Highland Way and into the “wilderness”. The rails nostalgically clickity-clack underneath as mist lingers and highland springs gracefully trickle down the hills. Tourists excitedly chatter as the Glenfinnan Viaduct creeps into view, a historic piece of industry made particularly famous by its appearance in Hollywood flicks.

Ancient boulders carried south by collapsing glaciers lay dispersed on the hills like clothing scattered from a dying man sweltering under a brutal sun. Nearby, hewn stones mark out the rubble of tiny dwellings, the picked-clean carcasses of long-lost Highland communities. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the Glen, next to a Loch, a manor house stands cocksure and regal in garish juxtaposition from the landscape surrounding it: Lord of all it surveys with all outside a playground. A Monarch in the Glen.

I spend the next few days, via a few ferries and hikes, looking at rural power systems on and off the West coast. Infrastructure isn’t profitable here because the economies of scale simply don’t exist. Locals frequently make do with what they have — a motley mix of diesel generators, tiny hydro schemes, solar, and wind- which allow these communities modern appliances and creature comforts where in the past you’d have to make do with a diesel genny and only 5 or 6 hours of light an evening. In places like Eigg, community trusts fund and maintain the power systems with community benefits. These are supported by Government grants by schemes like CARES and help provide jobs and amenities to local populations.

A connection to the main GB network would cost at least 2 or 3 times the entire network cost for the microgrid on the Isle with none of the independence community ownership brings, so the people simply did it themselves. They still rely on the massive power companies for support — parts, maintenance, and construction are not resources or skills readily available in the far North-West, and repairs can take weeks as these frequently have to be sourced externally. But it works. The engineering is jury-rigged and maintaining it is akin to “nailing jeely tae a wa’ ”, but it works. Without these communities taking the initiative they would be left to wither and collapse.