Green companies expect half of Scotland’s energy to be clean by 2030

Three in five renewable firms believe Scotland will be able to meet half of its power needs from clean energy sources by 2030. That’s according to a new report from […]

Three in five renewable firms believe Scotland will be able to meet half of its power needs from clean energy sources by 2030.

That’s according to a new report from law firm Brodies, which suggests a significant majority of Scottish businesses have faith in the ambitious green goal, despite changes to renewable subsidies and the absence of any similar scheme in the heat sector.

Around 77% of respondents identified storage technologies as a priority to ‘keeping the lights on’ by helping balance intermittent supply from renewables.

More than one in ten companies surveyed said low carbon facilities should be the priority, followed by gas fired plants (8%), and coal fired plant (2%) and importing electricity from England (2%).

Half of respondents said to boost district heating schemes, developers should be required to install district heating in new developments.

Another 18% said the sector could be helped by requiring energy consumers to connect to such schemes and 15% said it would be best to provide business rate relief for developments with district heating.

Respondents also identified three key policies which Scotland could introduce to accelerate onshore wind development.

These were public sector power purchase agreements (28%), increasing turbine tip heights (24%) and making the re-powering of existing sites more favourable (24%).

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