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- April 2011

Winds of change - Scotland's renewables future

Renewable energy must not just be at the heart of Scotland’s energy and economic policies but at the heart of the new Government’s vision for a strong, sustainable, successful country, according to the industry.

With the elections for the fourth Scottish Parliament now complete, Niall Stuart, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, has called for a clear commitment that everything possible will be done to promote renewable energy in Scotland.

“We must make absolutely sure we get the most out of the fantastic wind and wave and tidal resources Scotland has and also our fantastic engineering heritage, offshore expertise, the academic work going on and the links between government business, academia and enterprise networks,” he said.

“Four years ago the Scottish Government introduced a target of 50% renewable electricity by 2020 and I remember very clearly the time when there was a lot of debate around whether that was feasible. The growth of the industry over the last four years has meant people are no longer debating if that is feasible but how much further we can go.

“The embodiment of that commitment to renewable energy for the last four years has been the Scottish Government’s decision to raise the target for renewable electricity to 80% by 2020.

“We would look for the incoming government, whatever colour or hue, to do everything not just to meet those targets but to go beyond them,” said Mr Stuart.

“These targets and that level of commitment build business confidence and create the right climate for investors to take forward developments here in Scotland.”

He said that rather than confidence, the Westminster Government’s proposals on Electricity Market Reform had created uncertainty around the likely returns on investment in renewable energy.

“It is important the UK Government continues to work very closely with the renewables industry, with the finance community and with the investment community to make sure that the final proposals achieve what they are designed to do - create a very strong and attractive climate for investment in renewable electricity in the UK.”

He said it was little surprise there was so much focus on offshore wind at the moment.

“The scale of proposed development and investment will take the renewables sector into completely different terrain. It will totally revolutionise the scale of this industry.”

He said there were considerable opportunities in onshore wind which involved proven technology for which the risks could be easily assessed.

Offshore wind had a considerable way to go although there were developments off England and in Europe and Scottish businesses including Subocean, Petrofac and Sgurr Energy were already winning work.

“All the different forms of renewables have very different challenges to maximise their deployment.

“For offshore wind the big challenges are going to be around growing a supply chain by the middle of this decade which can support the build out of planned sites.

“We anticipate £30 billion will be invested in offshore wind in Scotland in the next 10 years and across the UK it is expected to be in the region of £120 billion. This is a massive new market for all kinds of goods and services from vessel chartering, legal work, due diligence and financial packages to health and safety and recruitment. There are big opportunities for a whole range of businesses.

“There will be several billion pounds invested in onshore wind over the next decade but to meet our targets there will also be significant investment in wave and tidal technology, in new biomass plants, anaerobic digestion plants and energy from waste.

“We should expect a big change in the way we generate distribute and use energy, and that is going to overlap with lots of other existing sectors like transport, waste management, construction, and civil engineering.

“People should also look at existing sectors and opportunities, for example, a significant number of new, smaller hydro schemes will be developed which is accessible work for many construction firms throughout Scotland.”

He urged Scottish businesses to grasp some of the opportunities which already exist.

“Feed-in Tariffs are a more generous level of incentive for small scale renewables which businesses should be looking at,” he said. “We have to think of renewables as being in all different sizes and scales.

“There are strong incentives for small scale projects which will pay back over a very short period whether a small wind turbine or Solar PV (solar panels) and there is massive potential for businesses to generate an income or at least cut their energy bills by deploying renewable technologies.”

Last year almost five times as many households (363) applied for feed-in tariff registration as businesses (76).

“We are about to see the introduction of a Renewable Heat Incentive to encourage people to move away from gas or coal to renewable sources of heat.

“That will make it attractive for anyone who runs industrial processes to use renewable fuel stock to offset a large part of their energy and I am convinced most businesses in Scotland are unaware of that opportunity.

“Anyone with a roof space and a bit of land whether it be a greenfield or a brownfield site should undoubtedly be looking to small scale renewables to generate an income for their business or to offset their energy bills.

“There has been considerable debate around the effectiveness of renewables, a lot of which has been fuelled by misinformation. The facts are that in 2009 over a quarter of all Scotland’s electricity demand was met by renewables and 11% of the demand for electricity in Scotland was met by wind power. “Businesses can be confident that this is an affordable, reliable and secure form of power.”