Highlands and Islands MSP Mike MacKenzie has written to new UK Energy Minister, Amber Rudd, asking her to urgently review the case for island interconnectors for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Scotland’s island groups have huge untapped renewable energy potential – wind, wave and tidal – but are not currently connected to the National Grid
The Grid was designed to transmit energy the other way – from population centres outwards
The proposed links from the island groups (the Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles) are expensive, while policy, market and regulatory barriers have prevented delivery of island links
And the charging methodology means higher charges for Scottish generation relative to rest of GB (further from demand).
However, with a 400% increase in renewable electricity output over 10 years, Scotland is almost certain to meet its interim target of 50% renewable generation by the end of this year.
But the 100% target by 2020 is challenging and requires the current installed renewable generation capacity of 7.2GW to double to 14GW over the next five years.
See also POLICY PLATFORM article by Mike MacKenzie, MSP:
Failure to link Scotland’s ‘energy Islands’ to UK grid could have the same dire effect as Highland Clearances – http://goo.gl/mnIWdt
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