More than 70 per cent of Scottish electricity is renewable

Record levels of electricity have been generated from renewable sources in Scotland, figures have shown.

By The Newsroom Thursday, 20th December 2018, 12:53 pm Updated Friday, 21st December 2018, 10:56 am

More than 70 per cent of Scottish electricity was renewable last year, up from 54.4 per cent of Scotland’s demand in 2016.

The rise has been attributed to the increased capacity of wind power, which contributed an additional 4,600GWh increase in electricity generation.

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Wind farms are driving renewable electricity across Scotland

Energy minister Paul Wheelhouse said: “These figures show Scotland’s renewable energy sector continues to grow with a new record set at 70.1 per cent of Scotland’s electricity demand that could be met from renewable resources.

“This represents an almost 16 percentage point increase over levels seen in 2016 and places Scotland well ahead of the rest of the UK.

“I am also very pleased to see so many new projects coming online, with installed capacity reaching a new record of 10.475GW at the end of Q3, up almost 6 per cent on last year, and with a strong pipeline of further projects under construction or to look forward to.

“Despite damaging policy changes from the UK Government, most recently with the announcement of the ending of Feed In Tariffs (FITs), the Scottish Government continues to champion Scotland’s renewables potential, both in terms of generation and infrastructure investment.

“As we seek to prevent the damage of climate change, we also saw progress in 2017 towards both our renewable heat target and new all energy target.