I am never quite clear why the government department that is now BEIS publish the latest breakdown of how power was generated to the grid a few days before Christmas, but it does mean there is less attention than there should be on what those changes show us.
For those concerned to see the Holyrood climate targets being met, and who understand the need to effectively decarbonise electricity if we are going to get anywhere close, then there is a lot to be positive about – with the amount of power produced by low carbon sources in Scotland breaking through the 75% barrier in 2015.
A combination of established hydro schemes (11%), intermittent renewables (mostly wind) (31%) and baseload nuclear (35%) put Scotland well ahead of the UK overall (but getting through 50% for the third quarter of 2016 across the UK is a good measure too).
It is somewhat baffling that the Holyrood civil service are so shy about making more of this achievement, particularly when the contrast with the overall UK picture is so stark. Until you factor in politics.
The difficulty for the political masters of the devolved government is that their stances are contradictory.
Driven from across political parties in Edinburgh, the climate targets in Scotland are, depending on your taste, either more ambitious or more pressing than the UK overall targets.
Partly, that is in recognition of the strong cross-party support there has been for developing renewable capacity since devolution – which has been a remarkably successful drive. Progress towards those targets rests upon having as low carbon as possible an electricity generation mix.
So lauding the ambition of the target, but being unable to even acknowlege that low carbon baseload nuclear power produced in Scotland is part of that success, causes a problem for a party whose enduring political narrative is built around justifying a decades old prejudice.
When we have such variability as was demonstrated in the first fortnight in December between record high and next to no wind power generated, then that requires baseload power to both keep the grid functioning and offset that intermittency effect.
Fortunately, we have two reliable nuclear power stations doing just that. While on one day in four, when wind is scarce, power flows from south of the border to north through the grid, it makes little sense to further entrench that imbalance in Scotland’s generation mix.
The problem is, of course, that with almost no thermal generation left, and those two low carbon baseload power stations coming towards retiral dates even after lifetime extensions in the years ahead, there is a looming issue to address.
After several years of only being seemingly disinterested, and ignoring or dismissing warnings of the imbalance in the mix in Scotland, just prior to the last Holyrood elections the gravity of the situation was finally acknowledged.
The devolved government was re-elected, albeit as a minority administration, on a manifesto commitment to revise energy policy in Scotland to address that imbalance and its impact on security of supply.
All options would be considered, on their merits and with an open mind, to get the right mix for the future. All options, except the one that provides one third of our power, emits no carbon and complements wind.
That, of course, is politics.
While I suspect very few, if any, of the roughly half of the population that voted in May 2016 did so on the basis of anything related to energy policy, that is the governing party’s position. It isn’t evidence-based or rational.
However, long after current and former First Ministers have been and gone, the implications of their forthcoming decisions on energy will be felt. When there is seemingly an instinctive attraction to the nonsensical position of simultaneously increasing renewable capacity but at the same time failing to reduce the carbon intensity of the power produced, as in Germany, then it is impossible to draw any other conclusion than justifying that prejudice is more important than decarbonising the power supply.
