THE Scottish Government's independent Expert Commission on Energy Regulation published its findings this week and came to a conclusion that, for once, both sides in the referendum debate could agree upon.
The panel, which has been considering the implications of independence both for power companies and consumers, said sticking with Britain's present integrated energy market would be the best outcome for everyone. Alex Salmond welcomed the report. "It is in our common interest to share energy resources across our borders," he said. The No campaign agreed, filing the report and its main conclusion in the box marked "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", along with sterling and other UK-wide arrangements (university research funding, for example) which the SNP aims to retain in an independent Scotland.
There agreement ended, however. While Robert Armour, chairman of the expert commission, said a shared energy market was possible with a little "goodwill and co-operation", the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) insisted the present system "could not continue in its present form". The row that followed focused on the possible consequences for Scotland's rapidly expanding renewables industry, which currently receives one-third of all the subsidies paid out by UK consumers.
The expert commission said cross-border subsidies should continue. DECC was adamant they would not. Scottish-generated wind power would be imported on a purely commercial basis, the ministry said. In other words, if the rest of the UK could buy low-carbon nuclear power more cheaply from France or the Netherlands, so be it. On this, the UK Government's hand appears to have been strengthened by a recent European Court ruling which established that governments were not obliged to include foreign-generated power in their own subsidy regimes. It is also worth noting the single Irish energy market, one of the cross-border examples used to argue that an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK could continue as now, does not operate cross-border subsidies.
The row will surely rumble on to referendum day itself, but the future of Scotland's renewables industry is only half the story. Ever since the First Minister famously declared Scotland could become "the Saudi Arabia of green energy" the Scottish Government has viewed the UK market as an opportunity to export vast amounts of low-carbon electricity to an England struggling to meet its environmental obligations.
But, as The Herald reports today, it is not all one-way traffic along Britain's interconnectors. Scotland has begun to import electricity from the rest of the UK. The amounts are not high. Over the past three years, some English-generated power has been required on 162 days. However, on 10 occasions, power was imported right through the day to meet Scotland's needs and experts believe the situation will worsen as the country's non-renewable power stations are due to close.
In an article for the latest edition of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society's magazine, The Geographer, Professor Paul Younger of Glasgow University argues that, with nuclear power stations Hunterston B and Torness due to close in 2023, and ageing, coal-fired Longannet not expected to last beyond 2025, there is barely enough time to build replacements that can provide the baseload, or constantly available, electricity essential when the wind fails to blow.
With the SNP set against new coal or nuclear, the only option is a new generation of gas-fired power stations, even though most North Sea gas fields lie off the coast of England.
Professor Younger, one of the country's most respected experts in energy engineering, is equally unimpressed with energy planning down south. England has similar problems, he says, and there are is no guarantee going forward it will have spare capacity to feed power north when Scotland is in need. It is an alarming assessment but, as things stand, it certainly underlines the importance to Scotland of being part of an integrated British market, not just for exporting increasing amounts of green energy but also for importing supplies when the turbines are not turning.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article