Frequently Asked Questions
Energy in Scotland: Get the facts
- Renewable energy currently supports over 11,000 jobs in Scotland (Scottish Renewables, January 2014).
- The Scottish Government has an ambitious but achievable target for renewable energy in Scotland to generate the equivalent of 100 per cent of gross annual electricity consumption and 11 per cent of heat consumption by 2020.
- Renewable generation in Scotland is enough to power the equivalent of every household in Scotland.
- Boosting renewable energy will also make a significant contribution to a sustainable economy.
Wave and tidal energy
- Scotland has an estimated 25% of Europe's tidal potential and 10% of its wave potential.
- The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) celebrated ten years of real-sea experience in 2013. There have been more grid-connected marine energy converters deployed at EMEC than at any other single site in the world and the centre remains the world’s only accredited marine energy laboratory.
- The Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters is the site of the world's first commercial scale leasing round for marine energy.
- The Crown Estate, which owns the sea bed, has awarded leases for just over 1.6 gigawatts of marine projects in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters - potentially enough to power 750,000 households.
- The Saltire Prize is the world's largest prize for marine energy innovation.
- Onshore wind power has recently overtaken hydro power as the most common form of renewable energy in Scotland.
- Figures published in June 2013 show wind generation in the first quarter of 2013 reached a record high, up by 11.5% year on year.
- Scotland boasts 25% of Europe's offshore wind resources.
- Scotland was the one of the first countries in the world to harness electricity from its waters. That legacy is still visible - Scotland's ambitious hydro building programme in the 1950s and 1960s resulted in infrastructure which still produces electricity today.
- More hydro schemes are in the pipeline and the Scottish Hydropower Resource Study found that there could be as much economically viable untapped hydropower potential to power a quarter of Scotland's homes.
North Sea oil and gas
- On an internationally comparable basis Scotland is estimated to have the largest oil reserves in the European Union, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of total EU reserves.
- Since the 1970s, over 40 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) have been extracted from the UK Continental Shelf. However, the remaining oil and gas reserves on the UKCS are substantial, for example, Oil and Gas UK estimate that up-to 24 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent can still be recovered from the UKCS as a whole.
- The North Sea still produces 1.5 million boe a day and Oil & Gas UK estimates that production could reach 2 million boe a day by 2017. In 2011, Scotland accounted for over 60% of EU oil production and approximately a third of EU total hydrocarbon production.
- Oil and gas production is estimated to have contributed around £22 billion to Scottish GDP in 2012 – making it the largest industrial sector in Scotland by a large margin.
- Since 1976, the UK Government has raised approximately £180 billion in direct tax revenue from oil and gas production. Adjusted for inflation, this is equivalent to approximately £300 billion at 2012-13 prices.
- In 2011-12 alone, oil and gas production in Scottish waters generated £10.6 billion in tax revenues, the second highest nominal level of tax revenue in the past 25 years.
- The Scottish Government Oil and Gas Analytical Bulletin (11 March 2013) found that given recent trends in investment and prices, the oil and gas industry could generate between £41 and £57 billion in tax revenue over the six years to 2017-18.
- The industry provides employment for around 200,000 people across Scotland both directly in the industry and by supporting jobs in other sectors of the economy.
Frequently asked questions
Page updated: Friday, May 09, 2014