Sustainable heat drive key to Scotland taking green energy lead

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Interesting an insightful comment by Jason Ormiston, Chief executive of Scottish Renewables

JANUARY 2008 will be remembered as perhaps the most historic month in the renewables industry in Scotland when a 2020 vision for green energy was embraced by all north of the Border.

Legislators were out of the blocks with three proposals – the European Commission's energy plan, the UK government's energy bill and the Scottish Government's draft National Planning Framework – all aimed at tackling climate change.

The EC plans said renewables should account for 15 per cent of the UK's energy generation by 2020. Scotland, however, can and should aim to achieve at least 20 per cent, and in doing so establish itself as a country committed to a low-carbon economy.

To achieve these targets, the UK and Scottish governments need to get green about the way we use and generate heat.

The European strategy, signed up to by Westminster, should be all the inspiration needed for the government to take this issue seriously at last. Heat is so important as it represents 50 per cent of Scotland's energy use and an energy strategy that does not take this into account is no strategy at all.

Some of the UK's leading experts will look at the issue at Scottish Renewables's conference in Edinburgh on 19-20 March. Scottish Renewables is under no illusion about how difficult this is, but has consistently argued that governments north and south of the Border must promote sustainable heat solutions.

There has been some work on fuel poverty and energy conservation and a small amount of financial support for micro- renewables, but the approach has been piecemeal and has not, until relatively recently, considered how to mainstream renewables into the heat market.

Heat used in Scotland, in our homes and in industry, accounts for over a third of all carbon emissions from the energy sector, with a little under a third for electricity use and a third for transport. Clearly, an energy and transport policy that focuses on electricity almost to the exclusion of heat and expects vehicle miles travelled to increase in the coming decades does not make a balanced energy strategy.

Given the UK's current woeful all-energy renewables contribution of 2 per cent, the 15 per cent target for 2020 look
s stretching, but it seems the UK has got off the hook for being a slow mover on heat issues.

Scottish Renewables made a stab at working out Scotland's contribution in 2006 and concluded something like 6 per cent of all our energy use comes from renewables, with renewable electricity making up the vast majority of that. The EC model for targets is to add 13 percentage points to the baseline and so, accounting for growth in renewables in 2007 and 2008, Scotland should aspire to at least 20 per cent by 2020.

The Scottish Government does not have to do anything as this is a reserved matter, but with tough carbon-cutting targets set in its Climate Change Bill, it will have little option but to push the agenda for massively expanding the contribution for all renewables. If it does that, January 2008 will go down as the month we triggered the revolution in Scotland's energy industry.

From The Scotsman

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