SNP comments on renewable electricity need a bit of explanation

Both John Swinney and Kate Forbes, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Scotland, claimed last week that more than 100% of Scotland’s electricity needs come from renewable sources.

That’s true in a way, but it might mislead some people into thinking that Scotland doesn’t use any fossil fuels for electricity. It does.

In a speech in Glasgow on 31 May, Mr Swinney said: “When we came to office, 20% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption was coming from renewable energy, and that is now the equivalent of 113%.” The word “equivalent” there is important.

Ms Forbes told Sky News on the same day that “last year over 100% of our electricity needs came from renewables because of what the SNP has been doing”.

In a separate interview with BBC Breakfast, also on 31 May, she said: “Over 110% of our electricity is currently being generated by renewable sources… In other words we are generating more energy from renewables for our electricity needs, and some of that is therefore being exported of course to the rest of the UK.”

The important point here is that Scotland does generate more electricity from renewable sources than the total amount of electricity that it uses.

Full Fact contacted the Scottish government, which directed us to a press statement from January saying that renewable generation was 113% of overall consumption in 2022.

However, it isn’t always possible to use all the renewable electricity being generated, as sometimes there is not enough demand, or no way to store it. Nor can renewable sources meet demand all the time, for instance if there is not enough wind or sun, or not enough in storage.

In fact, as Ms Forbes told BBC Breakfast, much of the electricity generated in Scotland is exported to other parts of the UK. In the year ending June 2023, about 64% of the electricity Scotland actually used came from renewables, with 15% from fossil fuels and a further 20% from nuclear power plants.

In the words of the Scottish government’s Energy Statistics Hub, generating the equivalent of 100% of Scotland’s electricity needs from renewables “does not mean that Scotland will be fully dependent on renewables generation, but rather that renewables will form the key part of a wider, balanced electricity mix”.

Full Fact wrote about this in 2021, when the former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon made a similar claim. The Office for Statistics Regulation also wrote about the subject in 2022.

Politicians should take care to be clear what they mean when they use statistics, including giving context when necessary.

Image courtesy of Scottish Government/Parliament