Written by: Afshin Shakouri
“A flourishing, competitive local and national energy sector, delivering secure, affordable, clean energy for Scotland’s households, communities and businesses.” Scotland’s 2050 vision for energy
Scotland is one of the energy-rich nations, moreover, the engineering bravery in development of coal, oil, gas industry and recently in the renewable sector. According to the government aims, %100 of the electricity demand will generate from renewables energy by 2050. currently, most of the electricity supply decarbonised, as the temporary statistics indicates 54% of Scotland’s electricity demands produced from renewables. In 2015 the Energy demand in Scotland was 157 Terawatt-hours(TWh) & the rest was exported or losses. Based on the government data, from 2009 till now £1 billion allocated on stopping fuel poverty and improving the energy efficiency of buildings. The diagram below represent the flashback at 2015 about the Scotland’s energy overview.
Figure 2: Scotland’s energy overview (Scottish Government, 2020)
Scotland’s energy future prediction
- – Heating our homes and businesses is the major share of our energy consumption around %51, which can reduce by proper heat isolation and energy efficiency.
- – The transport sector consumes a quarter of the energy.
- – The share of electricity from the total energy demand is 24%. The installed renewable energies in Scotland was 9.5GW in 2017.
- – Based on the government data fossil fuels are still essential for the total energy, and transport demand; moreover, export demand is still high.
- – 63% of the UK gas produce in Scotland however, the entire UK relay on importing gas.
- – Even the share of renewable energy increased, the proportion of energy demand risen as well over the last decade. The energy demand rose from 8% in 2009 to almost 18% in 2015.
Figure 3: Share of final end user sectors and costumers at 2015 (Scottish Government, 2020)
Final Energy demand trend (2007 – 2015)
The figure below represents that the target of 12% energy efficiency obtained six years earlier based on the total energy demand trend decreased by 15% from 2007 till 2015.
Figure 4: Energy demand trend from 2007 till 2015 (Scottish Government, 2020)
Renewable Electricity in Scotland in the past decade
Renewables electricity production share increased from around 12% in 2000 to 54% by 2016, generate the preponderance of Scotland demand. However, the rest of demand provided by two nuclear power stations and coal power station and gas-fired station.
In one year 3575 electric vehicles ( EVs) authorised in Scotland. Over 600 EV charging points, over 1200 charging bays installed in Scotland recently.
Figure 5: Electricity provided by renewable sector in Scotland (Future market insights, 2019)
Energy Flows in Scotland the overview of 2015 and 2050
This figure compares the two potential scenarios of “electric future” and “hydrogen future” in 2050. Both scenarios have their specific challenges, investment, and infrastructure requirement. By 2050, Scotland probably chose a combination of these scenarios and new alternative.
Figure 6: The energy overview of 2015 and 2050 in Scotland (Scottish Government, 2020)
References:
- . Scottish Energy Strategy: The future of energy in Scotland. (2017).
- . Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (2019). Sub-national total final energy consumption data. [online] GOV.UK. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/total-final-energy-consumption-at-sub-national-level.
- . Update on Renewable Heat Target and Action -2019. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.parliament.scot/S5_EconomyJobsFairWork/General%20Documents/20191028-MinECI-Update_Renewable_Heat_Target-Action2019.pdf [Accessed 22 April 2020].