Scottish Government Ministers have agreed a support package worth £195,000 to retain staff at two steel plants. The move will see a number of staff paid 60% of gross salary and advanced training to ensure the plants – Dalzell and Clydebridge – can reopen quickly.
Political parties in Scotland should commit to a national strategy to help businesses and consumers reduce and manage their demand for electricity, environmental and energy groups have said. WWF Scotland and Edinburgh-based company Flexitricity have stressed that implementing a concerted strategy regarding electricity consumption would mean Scotland could avoid the need to build expensive new fossil fuel power stations and more rapidly cut climate emissions. The groups also asserted that such a strategy must go beyond energy efficiency, and include measures to increasingly tap into the vast existing “invisible“ power network of industrial, commercial and public sector organisations.
Throughout the holiday season Energy Voice will be taking a look back at some of our most read columns from 2015. From oil and gas leaders, politicians and leading think-tanks here’s what the industry was talking about this year.
Electricity is being transmitted along the full length of the controversial Beauly to Denny power line for the first time. Joint developers Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission (SHE Transmission) and SP Energy Networks said the 220km (136-mile) “power super-highway” is now fully operational at up to 400 kilovolts. The overhead line carries renewable energy generated in the Highlands to central Scotland and was given the go-ahead by Scottish Government ministers in January 2010.
The Orkney firm behind plans for the world’s biggest tidal turbine said yesterday it had secured a further £5.7million for the project. Kirkwall-based Scotrenewables Tidal Power (STP) said the massive two megawatt floating device, which is about 250ft long, was nearing completion at Harland and Wolff (H&W) shipyard in Belfast. It is due to be launched early next year before being towed to the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney for the start of grid-connected testing.
Donald Trump last night instructed his lawyers to take his fight against an offshore windfarm to the European Court of Justice. The Supreme Court in London – the highest court in the land – yesterday announced it had rejected the US businessman’s appeal against the Scottish Government’s approval of the 11-turbine project at Aberdeen Bay. Vattenfall and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG), partners of Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Ltd (AOWFL), welcomed the decision and reaffirmed their commitment to the project – with campaigners also hailing the victory for renewable energy.
Vattenfall last night vowed to press ahead with their £230million offshore wind project, and welcomed the Supreme Court's ruling. Andy Payne, project director for Vatenfall's Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm (AOWF), said the Swedish energy giant was looking at ways it will fund the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC) - and that a decision will be made by mid-next year.
The Scottish Government has invited tenders for a research programme into the potential impacts of onshore unconventional oil and gas extraction.
A number of companies have applied for licences to exploit shale gas in Scotland, according to new data. The investigative journalism website, The Ferret, said a total of nine companies had applied to look at potential shale reserves.
EDF Energy said cracks have been discovered in bricks which make up the core of one of two nuclear reactors at the Hunterston power station in Scotland. The discovery was made at the site during planned maintenance in one of the reactors at its base in Ayrshire. The company has since said there will not be any safety implications as a result on the reactor.
The Scottish Government is preparing to abandon its moratorium on fracking after next year’s Holyrood election, Labour has claimed.
The Scottish Government will miss a key green energy target if proposed wind power projects fail to attract enough investment, renewables leaders have said. Industry body Scottish Renewables estimated that without further support for offshore and onshore wind farms, the country would generate the equivalent of 87% of electricity demand from environmentally friendly sources by 2020. That is short of the target set by ministers of providing the equivalent of 100% of demand from renewables by this date.
Rigs have been stacking up in the Cromarty Firth amid the continued decline in oil price.
Plans to build the world’s largest offshore windfarm off the north-east coast have been approved. Norwegian energy giant Statoil will erect five 600ft turbines tethered to the bed of the North Sea, 15 miles from Peterhead. The Scottish Government has today granted the firm a marine licence, allowing construction work on the huge structures to begin.
Failure to address Scotland’s relatively poor productivity could cost 11,000 jobs and £400 million in taxes by 2025, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has warned. Scotland has a long-standing gap in productivity - the measure of the amount of goods and services created - between the rest of the UK and is a long way behind European competitors, Ms Sturgeon said. She told business leaders Scotland faces “deep-seated challenges”, particularly in the oil and gas sector, in an address to a Business in Parliament conference at Holyrood.
An offshore worker has captured incredible images of wildlife in the North Sea.
A freedom of information request (FOI) by environmental group Greenpeace has shown the amount of investment by energy companies at some UK universities topping more than £20million.
The number of Scottish firms going out of business has fallen to pre-recession levels.
The debate on whether to pursue unconventional sources continues to rumble on, with SNP members narrowly rejecting a bid to toughen up the party’s stance on fracking amid calls for an outright ban.
SNP members have narrowly rejected a bid to toughen up the party’s stance on fracking amid calls for an outright ban. The strength of opposition among members to the controversial shale gas extraction technique was revealed during a debate at the party’s conference in Aberdeen. Several speakers called for a motion from the party’s Leith branch, backing the Scottish Government’s moratorium on fracking, to be reconsidered and strengthened.
A senior executive of fracking company Ineos has said he is “not too concerned” about a motion at the SNP conference that could result in a further clampdown on the controversial practice. Party members meeting in Aberdeen will today be asked to back a move that would place tighter restrictions on the party’s moratorium on shale gas extraction. The Scottish Government has already halted any fracking until 2017.
Oil prices will rise again by 2018 and reinvigorate economic activity in the North Sea, according to a billionaire Scottish Government adviser. Jim McColl, who sits on the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers, told Holyrood’s Economy Committee his own Clyde Blowers’ engineering investment firm is “holding out quite well” in the economically-depressed North Sea and he predicted the downturn will reverse in the next two years. Increased oil and gas production contributed to the 0.7% rise in the UK economy announced yesterday but this has yet to feed through to the Scottish onshore economy, leaving Scotland’s GDP lagging behind at just 0.1% growth.
United States Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is staging the latest round of a legal fight against an offshore wind farm project near a Scottish golf resort he owns. Scottish Government ministers approved proposals for an 11-turbine scheme off the Aberdeenshire coast in 2013. Billionaire businessman Mr Trump, president of The Trump Organisation, is against the plan and says the wind farm will spoil the view from his luxury golf links at the Menie Estate.
Almost 10% of companies in the UK are unaware they have been victim to cyber security attacks with incidents now costing an average of £1.7million, according to a new report. The annual survey, which involved more than 10,000 executive from more than 127 countries, showed an escalation in the frequency, severity and impact of cyber-attacks. Insiders - either current or former employers - top the list as a major source of incidents. But it was also found firms are becoming more adept at prevention and detection methods with innovation also on the rise.
Scotland is taking the lead in Britain as it forges ahead with deploying onshore wind, according to new findings by Renewable UK. The report “Wind Energy in the UK” says although England is missing out on some of the economic benefits of onshore wind it is trailblazing ahead in the offshore wind sector. More than 60% of UK onshore wind projects are now installed and operational in Scotland generating an annual turnover of £211million. The overall turnover for the UK as a whole was £402million – with Scotland bringing in more than half of that revenue.