Breaking: Almost 90% of electric power consumption in Scotland now comes from renewable energy sources.
Scotland is aiming to achieve 100% power by the use of renewable energy by 2045 latest. They have set aside targets for each year in order to achieve a net-zero target by the year 2045.
Some of Scotland’s renewable energy sources come from:
- Hywind: This generates power from offshore wind farms that float on sea, with the help of strong sea winds.
- Marine Energy: This is electric power generated from rivers by using floating tidal turbines.
Recent data depicts that 90% of Scotland’s electricity demand is provided by renewable sources of energy. This is a massive increase of 14% year on year.
Cara Dalzie who was previously at Ofgem joined Scottish Renewables, a company that is the voice of Scotland’s renewable energy industry. She is now the Policy Officer, and this is what she had to say:
“The 100% target is still within reach, but policy uncertainty in recent years has meant our industry has not been able to deploy as much renewable electricity generation capacity as predicted”
According to Cara, the growth of offshore wind has happened more slowly in Scotland than in the rest of the UK.
Onshore wind farms that generate electricity from wind on land make up the majority of the green power generation in Scotland and this was locked out of the energy market by the UK Government for four years, resulting in fewer projects built in Scotland.
Carla also mentioned that Scotland is starting to catch on the onshore and offshore wind projects, as they are able to sell the power generated now. And combine this with other renewable energy sources such as tidal power, solar and hydro, the 100% target to achieve net-zero emission remains within reach for Scotland.
In Scotland, only a quarter of the energy used is electric in nature.
To this, Miss Cara Dalziel said that as a government, Scotland now has a new target. That by 2030 almost half of Scotland’s entire energy i.e electricity, heat and transport must come from renewable sources of energy. And to achieve this target, it is important that Scotland speeds up and rework the decarbonisation of Scotland’s heat supply.
For all this, Scottish Renewables will be able to provide a definitive answer by March 2021, if this target is feasible enough to be met.
