In 2011, Scotland set a target of reaching 100% clean electricity consumption in 2020. And last year, the country almost reached its target – 98.6% of gross electricity consumption came from renewable sources, according to the Scottish government’s December energy statement.
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Scotland, which is working to achieve net zero by 2045 – a legally binding target – has one of the most ambitious climate targets in the world.
In 2019, Scotland met 90.1% of its equivalent electricity consumption from renewables, according to Scottish government figures. The 100% target was set in 2011, when renewable technologies generated just 37% of national demand.
Here are Scotland’s energy targets, and what the country has achieved to date:
Energy targets Latest Target Overall renewable energy target: total Scottish energy consumption from renewables 25.4% in 2020 50% by 2030 Renewable electricity target: gross electricity consumption from renewables 98.6% in 2020 100% by 2020 Renewable heat target: non-electrical heat demand from renewables 6.3% in 2020 11% by 2020 Energy consumption target: Reduction in total energy consumption from 2005-07 Down 14.4% in 2020 12% by 2020 Energy productivity target: percentage change in gross value added achieved from the input of 1 gigawatt hour of energy from 2015 Down 5.9% in 2020 Up 30% in 2030 Source: Scottish government
61.8% of all electricity generated in Scotland in 2020 was from clean energy sources. There was a 1.9 TWh increase in clean electricity generated in 2020 compared to 2019, mainly from wind and hydro.
Cabinet secretary for net zero, energy and transport Michael Matheson said:
Scotland is leading the way internationally with our commitment to be net zero by 2045. This statement shows we are continuing to make good progress with the equivalent of 98.6% of gross electricity consumption being from renewable sources in 2020, which is up from 89.8% in 2019. Whilst we do have many challenges ahead of us if we are going to meet our ambitious targets, we have laid the groundwork in 2021 for Scotland to take important leaps forward towards net zero.
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FredThe12th on January 1st, 2022 at 05:10 UTC »
So they produced 40% of the energy from non-renewables than they used and exported about the same?
Brinsig_the_lesser on January 1st, 2022 at 04:00 UTC »
I always feel like they phrase it this way to purposefully mislead the public on renewables. It was never the target for 100% of Scotland's electricity to be generated from renewables, it was the target to generate an equivalent of 100% of Scotland's energy demand to be generated from renewables and this is an important distinction.
Its important to bring up because anyone seeing the stat in this headline would rightfully (but incorrectly) questions why we still have fossil fuel plants and nuclear plants running when renewables are producing almost all our electricity. The answer of course being that in reality they don't produce anywhere near as much of the electricity that we consume as the headline would suggest.
In 2019 60% of Scotland's energy generation came from renewables the other 40% was from fossil fuels and nuclear.
The stat in the headline while technically true, is misleading because that generation wasn't done when the electricity was needed so non-renewable sources were needed to generate electricity when people were actually needing it.
A simplified example to illustrate how they get that statistic. Imagine you had a wind turbine capable of producing 100MW a week and a house that required 50MW a week, one week the wind was blowing strong and the wind turbine produced 100MW (the house only uses 50MW a week) the next week the wind doesn't blow so the windturbine produces 0MW but the house still needs 50MW so that is supplied by a fossil fuel plant. Over the two week period the wind turbine produced 100MW and the house consumed 100MW so you can say that wind turbines generation was 100% of the houses electricity demand.
A method to store electricity on a large scale is needed (why gov is investing in green hydrogen)
You can argue about if this stat is green washing or whatever I don't really care about that, I care about maintaining energy security and keeping the lights on.
Just please don't look at this stat and think that we have almost solved our energy challenges, we still have a lot of work and investment to go
xratedcheese on January 1st, 2022 at 00:56 UTC »
It was Dundee, right? Jute, jam, and just burnin a few auld Beano annuals tae run the generators.