More than 100% of Scotland’s power needs were met by renewable energy in the first quarter of this year, with the surplus being “exported” to the rest of the UK, according to the devolved Scottish government.
In fact, Scotland generated enough renewable energy in January to March (8,877GWh) to power around 88% of Scottish households for a whole year. This was a 17% increase on the same quarter in 2018.
This enabled Scotland to “export” 4,543GWh to England and Northern Ireland across the quarter, enough to power more than 1.1 million households.
Scotland’s renewables capacity reached 11.3GW by the end of March, a 9.1% increase on the 10.4GW installed in March 2018. This was made up of 8.09GW of onshore wind, 752MW of offshore wind, 1.65GW of hydro and 835MW of “other”, including biomass and solar. Government figures show that Scotland has 7.35GW of onshore wind and 4.5GW of offshore wind in its project pipeline.
Scottish energy minister Paul Wheelhouse pointed out that renewables supplied almost 74% of the nation’s electricity last year, and that Scotland hopes that this will reach 100% by the end of next year.
“These figures show Scotland's renewable energy sector continues to go from strength to strength,” he said. “We are seeing the growing importance of offshore wind, with capacity and generation both continuing to rise – with further projects under construction.
“Despite damaging policy changes from the UK Government, particularly the inexcusable removal of an effective route to market for onshore wind, the Scottish Government continues to provide strong support for Scotland's renewable energy sector. Generation and infrastructure investment continues, not least because of the importance in preventing the damaging impacts of climate change.”
