Energy mix
According to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, “just short of 100 per cent of all the electricity we use in Scotland is from renewable sources”. And so far at COP26, a global climate change conference, Ms Sturgeon is still to be queried on this rather misleading statement.
To be accurate, she should say, “provisional figures indicate that in 2020, the equivalent of 95.9 per cent (revised from 97.4 per cent) of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption was from renewable sources”.
Of course, this does not mean that only 4.1 per cent of gross electricity consumption in Scotland is coming from non-renewable sources. Data from 2018-2019 via the National Grid’s Carbon Intensity website shows that an estimated 50.7 per cent of the electricity that Scotland actually consumed in that year came from renewable sources and 49.3 per cent therefore, from non-renewable sources.
2020 was a record year for renewable electricity generation in Scotland. In 2021, however, lower wind speeds and reduced rainfall have resulted in reduced wind and hydro generation of 17.6 per cent and 29.8 per cent respectively in the first half of the year.
Undoubtedly renewables now form a key part of Scotland’s electricity mix but it is a balanced electricity mix with our nuclear/gas power stations providing the security of supply on which Scotland actually still depends.
Penny Bell, Haddington, East Lothian
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