By Rohese Devereux Taylor

SCOTLAND’’S main water supplier is using its own produce and the sun to produce electricity and has helped increase its renewable energy usage by 12 per cent since last year.

More of Scottish Water’s water and waste treatment works are now self-generating electricity and is helping the company to make significant reductions to its carbon emissions.

The group generated 52.98 gigawatt-hours (GWh) last year, enough to power about 16,500 homes.

This generation was up from 46.5 GWh the previous year, with a 6.48 GWh increase.

The utility firm reported that just under half supplied renewable power to 73 of Scottish Water Group’s own sites across Scotland, while the rest was exported back to the national grid.

It is estimated Scottish Water consumes about 440 GWh per year of grid electricity at its sites but it has committed to becoming net zero by 2040, five years ahead of the target set by the Scottish Government.

Self-generation has been increasing at the group’s sites for the last five years, with a growth from 38.5 GWh over 2015 and 2016 to the current 52.98 GWh.

Energy manager Fraser Purves said: “With the many water and waste water assets we operate across Scotland we are one of the biggest users of electricity and we are continuing to harness new ways to reduce our reliance on grid power to make us greener and reduce operating costs.

“More and more of our infrastructure is providing various opportunities to deliver our service in a more sustainable way. To increase our renewable generation for the fifth year in a row demonstrates our commitment to operate in a greener manner – and puts us on course to reach our ambitious longer term energy targets.”

Nigg Waste Water Treatment Works, near Aberdeen, is one of the sites that helped the group reach its latest milestone.

Scottish Water took over the running of the site from a previous Private Finance Initiative-partner in December 2018.

The site has a 2MW Combined Heat and Power that underwent a major overhaul in 2019, with a major clean of a digester at the site.

This increased the volume and quality of gas produced, and the site produced 6.8 GWh of renewable electricity in 2019, up from 2.6 GWh in 2018.

Turret Water Treatment Works, which serves parts of Perthshire, Falkirk, Stirlingshire and Clackmannanshire, has the biggest renewable capacity of all Scottish Water’s sites with three hydro turbines that generated a total of

9.8 GWh last year, or enough to power 3,161 homes per year.

A major expansion of small-medium scale wind turbines and Solar Photovoltaic (PV) power also helped generate renewable energy by an increase of 12.19 GWh.

Since 2019, Scottish Water Horizons, the business arm of Scottish Water, launched four new PV schemes at sites across the country at Assynt, Camphill, Glenconvinth and Dunfermline.

Invercannie Waste Treatment Works in Banchory, near Aberdeen, was the highest PV generator last year with its 2,631 panels producing 0.54 GWh.

So far this year Scottish Water Horizons has installed a new ground-mounted PV scheme at Glassford’s service reservoir near Hamilton.

Plans for next April include new schemes at Finmont service reservoir in Fife and at Inverness Water Treatment Works, which combined have the capacity to generate almost 1 GWh.

Donald MacBrayne, business development and delivery manager at Scottish Water Horizons, said: “Looking ahead we will significantly increase our activity to help us achieve the Scottish Water Horizons target of 90GWh of new low carbon generation by 2030.”

The Herald reported this week that Scottish Water-owned Business Stream has saved its customers more than

£30 million through discounts, water efficiency and energy savings over the past year.

It said the total annual savings for 2019/20 include more than £15m in customer discounts, more than £12m in water efficiency savings and nearly £2m in energy savings for its customers across the UK.

Business Stream said it has saved customers more than £272m in discounts and 49 billion litres of water since 2008.

Chief executive Jo Dow said: “Over the past12 years we have listened to our customers and tailored our solutions to meet their needs. Since the introduction of competition in Scotland in 2008 our aim has been to pass on the benefits to businesses by delivering innovative new services and keener pricing.

“We have a strong focus on helping our customers to use water efficiently, which will deliver further savings.”