97.4% of Scottish electricity demand met through renewable energy

It is always nice to see your country lead the world and gain plaudits for their achievements. It is especially fulfilling when that achievement is something you really care about. Scotland is where I grew up and live now, and after decades of being known as a major producer of fossil fuels from the North Sea, the country is trying to redeem itself by being at the forefront of renewable energy. It is perfectly situated for the generation of renewable energy, and this has started to pay off. Last year, Scotland managed to generate 97.4% of its total electricity demand through renewable energy. This was an increase from 90.1% the previous year. 70% of that figure came from onshore wind farms, with hydro power and offshore wind making up the majority of the remainder.

Although those figures look great, there is still a lot more progress that can be made. The 97.4% figure only concerns electricity generation and doesn’t take into account heat and transportation, which still rely heavily on fossil fuels. The Scottish Government has given themselves a target to meet 50% of total energy usage through renewables by the end of the decade, which will be a tough challenge. With electric vehicles becoming less expensive and more functional, hopefully things will start moving a bit more quickly.

The country still has far more renewable capability than what is being tapped just now. Tidal energy is in its infancy, and Scotland could have a huge future in that area. The country has the potential to provide a quarter of Europe’s total tidal energy and a tenth of the continent’s wave energy. Tidal energy is especially important as it doesn’t have some of the downsides of other renewable energy sources. There is no downtime as there can be with solar and wind generation and the tides have a very predictable pattern. Just one area, the Pentland Firth, which lies between the Orkney Isles and the mainland, has been estimated to have the potential to generate 1.9GW of renewable energy due to the fast currents found there. This is almost half of the country’s electricity consumption at the moment. If the technology is improved in the future and more energy can be tapped, that number could more than double to 4.2GW.

There is still a lot of work to do. Exploratory projects have begun to try to access the tidal energy in the Pentland Firth energy. The Meygen project is classed as the largest tidal stream project in the world at the moment due to the number of 1.5MW turbines it has installed on the seabed. Currently the project only generates enough energy to power 2,600 homes, but plans are in place to deploy 265 more turbines. These will only be fully installed when tidal energy proves it can compete on cost with other renewable sources. Hopefully that will be soon.