Day by day, Scotland’s 2020 renewables vision comes into sharper focus.
The vision as laid out by the powers-that-be at Holyrood is for Scotland to be producing 100% equivalent of its total power demand from green energy sources by the end of this decade.
An interim target for next year of 50% of power generated from wind, wave, tidal, biomass and solar and other novel green energy technologies is also being promoted.
By the end of 2013, total installed generating capacity reached 46.5% and, with more capacity being brought online this year, I fully expect the interim target to be hit.
But there is a whole lot more work to be done if the longer-term strategic target is to be met.
It requires the same amount of power capacity to be installed in the next five years as is already up and generating that’s an enormous task by anyone’s standards.
Politicians often use the phrase the “energy mix” to describe the range of power options available.
However, for Scotland’s renewables sector the reality is that hydro and offshore wind dominate and will continue to do so going forward.
Hydro is a mature technology which has played a hugely important role in keeping Scotland’s lights on for decades now.
It is a truly renewable form of power generation not even Michael Fish would predict a rainless future for Scotland it is reliable, and it is safe.
But there is a problem: the glens of Scotland that can be flooded to provide hydro reservoirs are already flooded. It is a sector constrained by geography, and there is no practical way of significantly building the meaningful capacity needed to hit the 2020 target.
So the onus is on wind power, which in 2010 overtook hydro as Scotland’s largest source of green energy, to fill the generation gap.
Onshore wind arrays are relatively inexpensive (by energy industry standards, at least) to develop, and as turbine technology has improved so has reliability and generating capacity.
But land-based windfarms will forever be controversial, for their visual impact if nothing else, and geographic constraints are again a long-term issue as there are only a certain number of sites with available space and the right climatic conditions to be viable.
The obvious solution is offshore wind, but in-water arrays are more expensive and more challenging to operate and maintain in the long-term.
There is a huge industry drive to cut costs, but advances in technology take time and, from a 2020 point of view, the clock is ticking.
Scotland’s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing is determined to push ahead, and his consenting last week of four mega-arrays off the coast of Angus and Fife is the kind of game-changer required if the 2020 vision has any hope of being achieved.
These arrays are big beer.
At a collective capacity of more than 2.2 gigawatts they represent investment of around £7 billion at my reckoning, and there will be thousands of jobs created during the construction process.
However, development consents do not mean they will be built. There are huge hurdles still to be overcome in terms of finance, taxpayer-funded support, design and grid connections, to name but a few.
Of the four arrays consented, Mainstream Renewable Power’s Neart Na Gaoithe scheme a 75-turbine windfarm due to be built in a block 15.5km off the coast of Angus looks the most likely to get going first.
But it won’t happen today or tomorrow, and I’d suggest you’d be best not holding your breath for next year either as there are always hugely long lead-in times for such major developments.
I genuinely admire the boldness of the Scottish Government in setting out its 2020 renewables vision.
I sincerely hope it is achieved, and that our patch of east central Scotland becomes a global renewables centre of excellence but, given the huge leap forward needed in a relatively short timeframe, I’d guess that 2020 may come a little early for the industry.
Perhaps Vision 2025 may be more realistic.