The Scottish government has announced that more than a third of gross electricity consumption in the country came from renewable sources in 2014.
Renewables now make up 38% of total output, compared with 33% for nuclear and 28% for fossil fuels.
At the end of 2015, there was 7.5GW of renewable capacity in the country, an increase of 4.6% over the year.
Scottish renewables made up 29% of the total UK renewable output in 2014.
Fergus Ewing, Scotland’s energy minister, said: “Today’s figures show that Scotland’s renewables sector is stronger than ever and our early adoption of clean, green energy technology and infrastructure was the right thing to do.
“It is fantastic news that renewables are now Scotland’s biggest electricity generator, and that nearly half of gross electricity consumption comes from renewables.
“Despite damaging policy changes from the UK government, we will continue to harness Scotland’s renewables potential, both in generation and infrastructure.”
Elsewhere, Uruguay is generating 95% of electricity from renewable sources, Vancouver plans to become 100% renewable by 2050 at the latest and Europe plans to generate half of its electricity by renewable sources by 2030.
The Scottish government is planning to generate 100% of gross annual electricity consumption and 11% of heat consumption from renewables by 2020.
The country’s total renewable potential from hydro, wind and tidal power has been estimated to be about 60GW, roughly equivalent to the whole of the UK’s present installed capacity.
Top image: A Wind Turbine on Deucheran Hill, Scotland (geograph.org.uk/Steve Partridge)
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Excellent! However can current wind turbine design not be hugely improved upon to even double the current energy output and thus greatly enhance the potential and the rate of expansion of this highly commendable energy source ?