Summary
Scotland provides a number of advantages to low carbon generation technologies which may be not offered elsewhere. Such comparative advantages are primarily driven by Scotland's climate, its marine environment, and offshore geology. These natural elements are supported by Scotland's research and development institutions and the country's manufacturing and industrial base. Of particular relevance to this final point is Scotland's experience of nearly 40 years in the offshore oil and gas sector.
In recent decades Scotland has relied upon fossil fuels and nuclear power for generation of electrical power. However, generators and the Scottish Government have demonstrated an appetite for an expansion of renewable energy. Prompted by ambitious long-term climate-energy targets, particularly those defined by Scotland's Climate Change Act, the development of renewable generation is expected to accelerate over the coming decade. Such progress will largely be supported by growth of onshore and offshore wind generation.
The key generation technologies in which Wood Mackenzie recognise Scotland as having a comparative advantage include: Wind, Hydro, Bioenergy, and Marine. The report also highlights Scotland's potential to provide permanent long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions for its indigenous sources, and also its potential to facilitate the development of a North Sea CO 2 infrastructure network.
Scotland's comparative advantage will help diversify and decarbonise indigenous energy supply over the coming years. However, a far larger prize for the country is how its comparative advantage of low carbon energy opportunities could be utilised in a EU-wide context. In the future, Europe's eyes could look toward northern European nations, like Scotland and Norway, to help meet environmental targets and mitigate energy security concerns.
To fulfil this opportunity a number of issues must first be resolved. These include: grid infrastructure expansion; reduction or removal of barriers to grid access; re-structuring grid charging mechanisms to promote the development of, often remote, low-carbon sources of electricity; and proving-up the carbon storage resource in offshore saline aquifers in the Central North Sea ( CNS).
Significant effort and expenditure would be required to fully realise this comparative advantage. Such an investment could be repaid, through the provision of a marketable premium product (a source of low carbon electricity and permanent sink for CO 2) to the UK and EU, bringing wider economic and environmental benefits to Scotland.