Wind News

Friday 11 December 2009

Scotland could "easily meet" 100% of its electricity need through renewables if capacity in the planning system was consented, according to a report published by Scottish Natural Heritage.

In a paper describing the work of the government body to facilitate the development of renewable energy generation in Scotland, Scottish National Heritage (SNH) said that current installed renewable capacity in Scotland is around 2834MW.

Along with 3739MW consented capacity yet to be built, it claimed that a total of 6573MW of renewables have been consented, around 4,000MW of which was onshore wind.

SNH equated Scotland's target of 50% renewable electricity by 2020 to around 8,000MW and said that the country is making "excellent progress" towards this target.

It added that a further 9,000MW of capacity remains within the planning system, with an additional 8,500MW of offshore wind and between 500MW and 2,000MW of marine renewables under development and scheduled for completion by 2020.

The report said that given the scale of renewables projects, "Scotland can easily meet 100% of [its] electricity needs."

"The challenge now is to find the best mix of technologies and the right balance between environmental impacts and the climate change / socio economic benefits of renewable energy.

"Given the good progress we are making towards targets and the exceptional renewable energy resources we have, there does not seem to be a need to make significant changes to our approach," it concludes.

The report came after an independent energy study carried out on behalf of the Scottish Government said Scotland's location and natural resources give it a "significant comparative advantage" for developing renewables (see this NewEnergyFocus.com story).

Planning

SNH said its support for renewables extended to all technologies, including micro, hydro and bioenergy, but that a number of challenges remain, not least in terms of planning.

The report said that of the 4,000MW of onshore wind which has been consented, only around 1,400MW has actually been built.

SNH has responded to over 230 formal planning applications for renewable energy proposals and engaged in over 1,300 applications during the development process.

It said that in principle, it supported over 75% of renewable applications and those to which it did object tended to be, or had the potential to affect, a protected site.

But, it added that where wind farms offer a "particularly poor carbon payback", it would consider revisiting its current approach.

SNH said: "Whilst we have offered advice in relation to each individual application, including a consideration of cumulative impacts, our understanding of the cumulative effect of these wind farms nationally will evolve as they are built."