Scotland skyrockets towards a Net-Zero future
Scotland is soaring towards the ambitious target of a Net-Zero future by 2045 as the usage of renewables reaches a record-breaking high.
The Scottish Government have released new statistics revealing that renewable energy technologies generated an equivalent of 113 per cent of Scotland’s overall electricity consumption in 2022.
Wind power alone generated 78% of all renewable electricity output in Scotland, with hydro power producing 12%.
Other renewables like biomass and marine energy have made a smaller contribution yet have a massive potential for growth in the future.
Professor Campbell Booth who expertise in electrical power engineering at the University of Strathclyde said: “It’s very encouraging to see from the figures from the article that renewables are indeed massive in Scotland, but what I would say as a researcher working in this domain is that it’s very important to ensure that the challenges associated with operating a renewable powered energy system are recognised.”
Despite the benefits, supply and demand are a particular challenge facing the effectiveness of renewable energy.
Professor Booth explained: “Renewable power is very intermittent in nature, there are sometimes where we may have nothing like enough renewable energy available to meet the demand and there are other times where we might have a lot of renewable energy, for example when it’s very sunny and windy.”
The statistics for Scotland’s gas and electricity consumption 2022 can be found at:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-statistics-for-scotland-q3-2023-part-2/
