Scotland's new Electricity Generation Policy Plan shares its bounty with the sassanachs
Continuing with its aspiration to be the ‘greenest’ country in Europe, the Scottish Government are currently consulting on its Electricity Generation Policy Plan. Not only does this set some high targets for renewable energy generation, but also has community ownership of at least part of this capacity at its heart. The Policy continues with the target set out in the Routemap, but slightly amends this so that it is now about “delivering the equivalent of at least 100% of gross electricity consumption from renewables by 2020” with an acceptance that other forms of ‘thermal generation’ will continue to play their part. Buried deep in the document is the fact that whilst Scottish Government policy remains the eventual phasing out of the nuclear power stations in Scotland, this “ does NOT preclude extending the operating life of Scotland’s existing nuclear stations to help maintain security of supply over the next decade while the transition to renewables and cleaner thermal generation takes place”. Local communities should also benefit with the Scottish Government predicting that communities may be entitled to as much as £2.4 billion from Feed in Tariff payments alone over the next 20 years. And don’t think that England is being left out because two new west and east coast transmission links with Deeside and Humberside should be in place by 2015 and 2020 respectively so Scotland can share its bounty with the sassanachs. A copy of the document is available via the following hyperlink and the consultation period runs until June http://scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0038/00389294.pdf
