Scotland’s Green Revolution: what do Scotland’s public think?

Written By Samuel Rowe – Senior Account Manager

The rapid growth of renewable electricity is a Scottish success story. Scotland is reaping the benefits of net zero – now we need to bring the public along too. 

Scotland produces more renewable energy than its total electricity demand. As the race to Net Zero gathers pace, the renewables industry across Scotland has shown the world how it’s done. 

This has been of enormous benefit to the Scottish economy. Recent reports suggest that the renewables industry across Scotland turned over £10 billion and created 10,000+ full time jobs in 2022 alone. And there’s still room for growth.  

Against this backdrop, we commissioned polling into the views and knowledge of the Scottish public on renewables. As new projects continue to pop up across the country, we wanted to get a snapshot of public sentiment. 

Our new report, Scotland’s Green revolution: What do Scotland’s public think? gives us an overview of the growing feeling around renewable energy from all corners of Scotland, from the Highlands to the Borders. 

What did we uncover? 

Our findings show clear support for more established renewable energies across the board. 79% of the Scottish public would support a solar farm being built in their local area. Even more encouragingly, after two decades of onshore wind farm development, 66% of the Scottish public would still support having one in their area. 

However, challenges lie ahead. Compared to the rest of Great Britain, scepticism is growing. Support for building any type of new energy development in the local area is, on average, 6 percentage points lower in Scotland than the rest of Great Britain. This is a timely reminder that support cannot be taken for granted. 

Our research also shows that, as new technologies are being introduced, the public is struggling to keep up with the pace of, and need for, change. Despite the growing need for more battery storage to support renewable energy generation, 42% of the Scottish public have never heard of Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS. It is a similar story for Hydrogen (42%) and Gas with carbon capture and storage (43%), two technologies that will be vital to Scotland’s net zero transition going forward. 

So it’s clear that more work needs to be done to bring local communities, interested groups, and elected members on the journey as the industry grows and matures. 

Our report sets out the challenge for policy and decision makers alike. While established renewable energy sources remain popular, the growing spectre of NIMBYism is creeping into Scotland, and with it, politicians who are more emboldened to talk down renewable energy projects. It is more important than ever for renewable energy developers to improve understanding of their projects amongst the Scottish public to remove scepticism and mobilise support. 

To download our full report click here.