THE President of the United States may have an intense dislike for the
offshore wind farm that, he insisted, ruined the view from his
Aberdeenshire golf course, but increasing numbers of people are coming to
the realisation that renewable energy is an idea whose time has come.
Earlier this month, it was reported that that very windfarm had generated
its first power. Elsewhere, positive news in favour of renewable news is in
plentiful supply. The first three months of 2018 were the first quarter in
which British windfarms provided more electricity than the country’s eight
nuclear power stations. Britain has been powered for more than 1,000 hours
this year without coal, with the renewables sector generating record
amounts of electricity. The Sierra Club, the US environmental organisation,
reports that the American city of Atlanta is looking to run entirely on
renewable power by 2025, including its international airport. The
Westminster government’s National Infrastructure Commission has urged
ministers to build only one new nuclear power station after Hinkley Point C
in the next decade, arguing that solar and wind could enjoy the same
generating capacity as nuclear at the same sort of price.
Added to all of which, of course, are the strides which Scotland – the
windiest country in Europe, lest we forget – has made in becoming a world
leader in sourcing energy from renewables. Energy giant SSE said recently
that its output from onshore wind generation in 2017/18 was enough to power
the equivalent of 1.35 million homes across the UK and Ireland for a year.
Yesterday’s announcement about Scottish islands being poised to share in a
renewable energy boom is thus to be welcomed. Wind-power projects on some
of our furthest-flung outposts could soon be able to apply for subsidies
which would abolish the element of financial risk that is part of building
away from the mainland. It is potentially good news for such projects as a
proposed 103-turbine windfarm on Shetland. Scottish Renewables makes the
telling point that the economic impact of large, onshore winds on these
remote islands may be utterly transformational.
Not every Scot, it has to be admitted, is convinced of the financial
benefits of renewable energy. It is acknowledged that poorer-than-average
wind conditions can have a knock-on effect on offshore and onshore wind
turbines. And the International Energy Agency is worried by a drop in
global investment in renewables last year. But for all that, clean energy
remains a key weapon in the fight against climate change, the most pressing
issue our planet faces. Scotland has shown what is possible in renewable
energy; an example, perhaps, for those overseas leaders who have yet to
match pro-renewable sentiments with meaningful actions.
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