The energy industry in Scotland is thriving and continues to attract inward investment thanks to an abundance of natural resources and a supportive infrastructure. The following statistics illustrate why Scotland is such an attractive proposition for companies looking to invest in energy.
- There are an estimated 920 million tonnes of recoverable crude oil remaining in North Sea oil fields.
- Scotland is Europe's leading offshore gas producer, with most of its reserves being found offshore in the North Sea.
- The Scottish Government has set a target of 31% of electricity to be generated through renewable sources of power by 2011.
- Scotland has the potential to generate 59.1 GW of power through renewable energy, with the prospect of becoming a major exporter of sustainable energy.
Find out more key facts and figures specific to the various energy sectors in Scotland.
Oil and gas play a crucial role in the Scottish energy industry, and are the country’s largest export sector.
- Scotland’s gas fields contain a maximum remaining reserve of 1330 billion cubic metres (bcm).
- The Scottish oil and gas industry supports 100,000 jobs, with almost 3,000 service and supply companies active in more than 40 countries worldwide.
- As many of the world's unexplored oil fields lie under very deep water, Scotland's expertise in subsea technology will continue to grow in importance.
- Some Scottish oil fields have been discovered relatively recently and are at an early stage of their productive life.
- Of the 500 exploration rigs in the world, 75 are to be found in the North Sea.
- In 2004, oil and gas companies in Scotland exported over £4bn of goods and services.
- Recent and future fields are expected to remain productive at least until 2020.
Wind energy in Scotland
Scotland has massive potential as a producer of renewable energy and its natural resources, such as wind, are set to become increasingly valuable in coming years.
- Onshore wind generation is an extremely cost-effective method of producing renewable energy and supports nearly 3,000 Scottish jobs.
- At the end of 2004, the UK was second only to Denmark in terms of offshore installed wind capacity.
- Scotland's potential wind generating capacity (36.5 GW) is higher than its requirements (10.5 GW), thus Scotland could be a net exporter of wind-produced electricity.
- At the end of October 2007:
- there were 43 onshore wind farms in Scotland, with a total current capacity of 1.135GW.
- a further 2GW of onshore wind energy projects had received planning permission and a further 5.2GW were in the pipeline.
- Currently Scotland has 60% of the UK’s onshore wind installed capacity.
- With a potential power output of 36.5GW, Scotland has 25% of Europe's wind energy source.
- By 2020, Scotland expects to achieve the Scottish Government renewable energy target of 50%, primarily through onshore wind power.
Marine energy in Scotland
Scotland is heavily involved in marine energy research, development and production.
- Scotland has 25% of Europe's tidal energy and 10% of the European wave resource.
- The country will form one of the few significant tide and wave energy markets in Europe in the coming years.
- Europe’s first full-scale testing, accreditation & development centre for wave and tidal devices is in Scotland.
- There is large potential for tidal energy (7.5 GW) and wave energy (14 GW).
Fuel cell research in Scotland
There is great excitement about the potential use of fuel cells for energy generation across the world.
- Scotland is pioneering research into fuel cell technology – a field which is widely expected to become hugely important in coming decades.
- Government funds will provide £16.5M to develop fuel cell demonstrator projects over the next four years.
Solar energy in Scotland
Although Scotland is not renowned for its sunshine, there is considerable potential to produce energy using Solar Thermal and Solar Photo-Voltaic technology here.
- Scotland’s Solar Photo-Voltaic installed capacity is approximately 500kW installed capacity and growing.
- Scotland has an abundance of natural resources, with 12 to 14 hours of useable daylight per day.
Bio-energy in Scotland
Scotland has extensive potential to generate power by converting organic material to energy using either a chemical reaction or a mechanical process.
- 60% of the UK’s forestry resource is situated in Scotland.
- Production of timber in Scotland is expected to double over the next 15 years as mature forests become available for harvesting.
- There are large tracts of rural agricultural land available for growing energy crops.
- From 2008, 3% of all road fuels will be required to come from biofuels, a figure that will increase to 5.4% by 2010.
- Scotland is currently involved in research into Algal Biofuels i.e biofuels from seaweed and algae, and the production of biobutanol from waste biomass using selected bacteria.
- Bio-energy is increasingly seen as a means of large energy users protecting themselves from the volatility of the global energy price market.
Contact SDI to find out more about the energy industry in Scotland.