Stephen Boyd, Assistant Secretary, Scottish Trades Union Congress

Content  Opportunities  STUC aspirations  Policy context  Progress to date  Barriers  Conclusions

Opportunities Scotland possesses:  25% of Europe’s onshore and offshore resource  25% of Europe’s tidal resource  10% of Europe’s wave resources  Biomass, hydrogen  Massive potential for deployment of emerging carbon capture and storage technology in North Sea

STUC aspirations A growing renewables sector should:  Create quality, sustainable employment  …particularly in fragile remote economies  Reinvigorate Scottish manufacturing  Use existing skills base effectively  Develop advantage in skills of the future  Contribute to climate change targets

Policy Context  Economic and social policy  Scottish and UK Government energy policy  Climate Change (Scotland) Bill

Economic and Social Policy Scot Govt Economic Strategy Targets  To match GDP growth rate of small independent EU countries by 2017  To raise Scotland’s GDP growth to the UK level by 2017 The ‘golden rules’  Solidarity: to increase proportion of income earned by the lowest 3 income deciles as a group by 2017  Cohesion: to narrow the gap in (labour market) participation between Scotland’s best and worst performing regions by 2017  Sustainability: to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050

Energy Policy UK target  20% of electricity supply from renewable energy from 2020 Scottish targets  31% of electricity supply by 2011  50% of electricity supply by 2020  16,000 jobs in renewables by 2020

Climate Change (Scotland) Bill  Stage 3 debate taking place today  Interim target of 42% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020  80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050

Progress to date 1  3000 jobs  Total renewables capacity installed, consented or under construction is 5.5 GW – more than 31% of gross energy consumption  Whitelees – biggest onshore windfarm in Europe heading towards completion  Clyde – consent granted for 200 turbine onshore windfarm; guarantee of at least £200m of contracts for Scottish firms

Progress to date 2  European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) test facility established in Orkney  Scottish marine energy developers recognised as world leaders  Sites identified and leasing programmes underway for tidal and offshore wind developments  Saltire Prize

Barriers 1  Infrastructure – massive investment required to upgrade grid network and connect projects in remote areas  Regulatory framework – working against achievement of renewables targets and rural job creation  Capital – ongoing failure to provide patient, committed finance to growing, innovative firms

Barriers 2  Absence of feed-in tariff – stifling progress on microgeneration  Skills – emerging constraints  Planning - under resourced Local Authority Planning Departments  Natura 2000 – ‘absolutist’ approach to implementation of Birds and habitats Directives  Nimby-ism

Conclusions  Employment dividend to date is insufficient to justify extravagant political rhetoric  Development must deliver quality jobs to Scotland’s fragile remote economies  Market fundamentalism continues to slow progress  Direct state role in resolving barriers is justified and indeed essential