Meeting of the Parliament 25 February 2015
Longannet power station is under threat of closure, which is a matter of regret, but it should come as no surprise to anyone and least of all to ministers in the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government’s report on proposals and policies, which is supposed to show how ministers intend to meet binding carbon emission targets that were agreed by Parliament, assumes that Longannet will be closed by 2020. The plant is acknowledged to be seriously polluting by European standards, and European Union requirements on carbon emissions mean that it cannot survive in its current form without substantial additional investment. That investment has not yet been forthcoming. Scottish Power has not invested to date, and the company’s decision not to bid in the capacity market auction from 2018-19 gives a pretty clear indication of its intentions.
The best recent hope for Longannet in the medium term was a scheme to enable investment in carbon capture and storage. That scheme did not reach fruition in part because Scottish Power deemed the billion pounds of public money that were potentially on offer not to be enough. Once that decision was taken, the die was cast and the chances of Longannet surviving into the 2020s in its current form effectively came to an end.
The Scottish Government’s responsibility in that situation is to be open and honest with the communities of west Fife about the power station’s prospects. However, the Scottish National Party’s amendment fails to address the prospect of closure, be it in 2018, 2020 or beyond. Instead, Mr Ewing asserts that
“cleaner thermal generation progressively fitted with carbon capture and storage technology will continue to play an important role”,
as if such cleaner thermal generation already plays a part. Of course it does not, and it might not do so for some time. Although the technology certainly exists, it does not yet operate at scale, and it has some proving to do before it can do so.