大象传媒

The main conclusions from the report include that:

1. The Committee is wholly supportive of the Executive's ambitious renewable energy targets. It is clear from the evidence that the Committee has taken that the Executive will meet its short term target of 18 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2010.

2. The Renewables Obligation (Scotland) scheme has been successful, but in a single direction that of promoting onshore wind power. It has led to the invigoration of the market for wind power by energy companies, but without developing other sectors.

3. The Executive鹿s current renewables policy is unintentionally working against the development of renewable energy sources other than onshore wind power.

4.This over-reliance on one source of renewable energy is not good energy policy.

5. As things stand, if the Executive鹿s 40 per cent renewables target for 2020 is to be met, it will be almost entirely through onshore wind power.

6. The Committee firmly supports the Executive鹿s commitment to increase renewable energy generation and believes that onshore wind must form an important part of that increased capacity. To achieve this there will need to be more onshore wind farms. However, there does currently appear to be a proliferation of large onshore, wind farm proposals concentrated in sensitive geographical areas, with which the planning system is struggling to cope.

7. Scotland is in a unique position to be able to create significant numbers of green jobs through encouraging and investing in leading edge renewables technologies.