Latest figures show growth of renewables in electricity consumption
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NEW figures show that the equivalent of 90 per cent of Scotland's electricity consumption now comes from renewable sources – an increase of 14 per cent year-on-year.
Onshore and offshore wind developments in the north of Scotland play a major part in the green energy growth.
Scotland has a target of 100 per cent by 2020 and that figure could still be, met according to Scottish Renewables.
Cara Dalziel, policy officer at the industry body, said: "The 100 per cent 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.
"The growth of offshore wind has happened more slowly in Scotland than in the rest of the UK and onshore wind, which makes up most of our green power generation capacity, was locked out of the energy market by the UK Government for four years – meaning very few new projects were built.
"We are, however, now starting to catch up offshore, and onshore wind is once again allowed to access auctions to sell the power it generates. We remain confident that with the growth in generation this will bring, alongside contributions from other technologies like solar, tidal power and hydro, the 100 per cent remains within reach."
Only around a quarter of the energy used in Scotland is electricity.
Miss Dalziel added: "We now have a new target, that by 2030 half of all energy, across electricity, heat and transport, should come from renewable sources. If we are to meet that, it is imperative that we act now to ramp up the decarbonisation of our heat supply, which makes up more than half of Scotland's total energy use."
Scottish Renewables says it will be able to provide a definitive answer on whether the 100 per cent 2020 target has been hit when statistics are updated in March 2021.
