Current status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 21 November 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-03387 by Fergus Ewing on 3 November 2011, what proportion of the 2020 renewables target it expects will be delivered by (a) tidal, (b) wave and (c) offshore wind energy, expressed in megawatts of projected demand; what percentage of (i) domestic and (ii) total demand it would consider major in this context and how it calculates these figures; when generation will start, and what the expected growth rate will be to 2020.
The Renewables Routemap estimates that we will need some 16 GigaWatts (GW) of capacity from across a wide range of renewable sources, but we have not published nor have we forecast targets for individual technologies.
As things stand, however, lease awards and agreements have been established which amount to over 11.5 GW of wave, tidal stream and offshore wind capacity in waters around Scotland. Our focus now is on working with the sector to address the technological, financial and infrastructural hurdles facing those projects – including the transition to a new support mechanism proposed as part of the UK Electricity Market Reforms – and to support the development of as much capacity as possible by 2020.