Magnus Gardham
Political Editor
THE Scottish Government’s independent Expert Commission on Energy
Regulation published its findings this week and came to a conclusion that,
for once, both sides in the referendum debate could agree upon.
The panel, which has been considering the implications of independence both
for power companies and consumers, said sticking with Britain’s present
integrated energy market would be the best outcome for everyone. Alex
Salmond welcomed the report. “It is in our common interest to share energy
resources across our borders,” he said. The No campaign agreed, filing the
report and its main conclusion in the box marked “if it ain’t broke, don’t
fix it”, along with sterling and other UK-wide arrangements (university
research funding, for example) which the SNP aims to retain in an
independent Scotland.
There agreement ended, however. While Robert Armour, chairman of the expert
commission, said a shared energy market was possible with a little
“goodwill and co-operation”, the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate
Change (DECC) insisted the present system “could not continue in its
present form”. The row that followed focused on the possible consequences
for Scotland’s rapidly expanding renewables industry, which currently
receives one-third of all the subsidies paid out by UK consumers.
The expert commission said cross-border subsidies should continue. DECC was
adamant they would not. Scottish-generated wind power would be imported on
a purely commercial basis, the ministry said. In other words, if the rest
of the UK could buy low-carbon nuclear power more cheaply from France or
the Netherlands, so be it. On this, the UK Government’s hand appears to
have been strengthened by a recent European Court ruling which established
that governments were not obliged to include foreign-generated power in
their own subsidy regimes. It is also worth noting the single Irish energy
market, one of the cross-border examples used to argue that an independent
Scotland and the rest of the UK could continue as now, does not operate
cross-border subsidies.
The row will surely rumble on to referendum day itself, but the future of
Scotland’s renewables industry is only half the story. Ever since the First
Minister famously declared Scotland could become “the Saudi Arabia of green
energy” the Scottish Government has viewed the UK market as an opportunity
to export vast amounts of low-carbon electricity to an England struggling
to meet its environmental obligations.
But, as The Herald reports today, it is not all one-way traffic along
Britain’s interconnectors. Scotland has begun to import electricity from
the rest of the UK. The amounts are not high. Over the past three years,
some English-generated power has been required on 162 days. However, on 10
occasions, power was imported right through the day to meet Scotland’s
needs and experts believe the situation will worsen as the country’s
non-renewable power stations are due to close.
In an article for the latest edition of the Royal Scottish Geographical
Society’s magazine, The Geographer, Professor Paul Younger of Glasgow
University argues that, with nuclear power stations Hunterston B and
Torness due to close in 2023, and ageing, coal-fired Longannet not expected
to last beyond 2025, there is barely enough time to build replacements that
can provide the baseload, or constantly available, electricity essential
when the wind fails to blow.
With the SNP set against new coal or nuclear, the only option is a new
generation of gas-fired power stations, even though most North Sea gas
fields lie off the coast of England.
Professor Younger, one of the country’s most respected experts in energy
engineering, is equally unimpressed with energy planning down south.
England has similar problems, he says, and there are is no guarantee going
forward it will have spare capacity to feed power north when Scotland is in
need. It is an alarming assessment but, as things stand, it certainly
underlines the importance to Scotland of being part of an integrated
British market, not just for exporting increasing amounts of green energy
but also for importing supplies when the turbines are not turning.
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