Huge volatility in renewable energy generation has underlined the scale of the challenge facing the Scottish Government in its net zero drive, which is set to become increasingly reliant on UK taxpayer funding.
While officials hailed an increase in renewables output as the SNP headed for defeat in the general election campaign, the figures concerned provided further evidence that efforts to reduce Scotland’s reliance on fossil fuel face major complications.
The latest Scottish Government energy statistics release showed the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources increased by 4% in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2023. The country felt the benefit of new developments such as SSE’s huge Seagreen windfarm off the Angus coast.
However, the impact of the vagaries of the weather was writ large in the update.
This showed that while renewable energy generating capacity has increased hugely in recent years total first quarter output was actually more than 5% lower than in the same period in both 2022 and 2020.
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One of the implications of the statistics is that Scotland needs a big increase in storage and transportation capacity to make sure it can use the renewable electricity that can be generated in times of low demand.
In the absence of such capacity we have been in the absurd situation of handing millions to renewables operators under the constraints payments system. This effectively rewards them for not generating electricity.
The energy statistics report notes that storage projects accounted for almost half of the 46.8GW capacity in the planning and construction pipeline in Scotland at the end of March.
Pumped storage hydropower........