Meeting of the Parliament 10 January 2023
I cannot give Maurice Golden the specific details, but he has raised a really important point. During the past nine or 10 months, because energy security has become such a central focus for European countries, the scale of the ambition to transition away from fossil fuel energy systems has grown significantly, so there will inevitably be constraints on availability of materials within the sector. It is impossible for the sector to scale up at the rate at which countries are now looking to transition away from oil and gas and to deliver renewable energy projects. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be material constraints that will have an impact on roll-out of some technology, so the member’s point is an important one.
Among the key things that will be central to addressing that are our looking at what we can produce locally in our domestic market including from recycling, repowering of some older onshore wind farms and moving early to secure access to materials.
This is an area in which Scotland has an advantage. We can move earlier than other countries that are now turning their minds to onshore and offshore wind. We are already in that space and are taking forward those technologies. We can help to secure greater access to markets and materials by moving early, which is why the strategy sets out a ramping up of our ambition and of the timeframe in which we want to deliver it. That should help to address the type of issue that Maurice Golden has highlighted.