Sustainable heat drive key to Scotland taking green energy lead

January 2008 will be remembered as perhaps the most historic month in the renewables industry in Scotland when a 2020 vision for green energy was embraced by all north of the Border.

Legislators were out of the blocks with three proposals – the European Commission’s energy plan, the UK government’s energy bill and the Scottish Government’s draft National Planning Framework – all aimed at tackling climate change.
The EC plans said renewables should account for 15 per cent of the UK’s energy generation by 2020. Scotland, however, can and should aim to achieve at least 20 per cent, and in doing so establish itself as a country committed to a low-carbon economy.

To achieve these targets, the UK and Scottish governments need to get green about the way we use and generate heat.

The European strategy, signed up to by Westminster, should be all the inspiration needed for the government to take this issue seriously at last. Heat is so important as it represents 50 per cent of Scotland’s energy use and an energy strategy that does not take this into account is no strategy at all.

Some of the UK’s leading experts will look at the issue at Scottish Renewables’s conference in Edinburgh on 19-20 March. Scottish Renewables is under no illusion about how difficult this is, but has consistently argued that governments north and south of the Border must promote sustainable heat solutions.

Scotsman