Standing on the coast near Nigg in the Cromarty Firth last month, I watched a supply vessel heading out towards the Beatrice offshore wind farm. The turbines were visible on the horizon, their blades turning steadily in the winter wind. It was, in its way, a beautiful sight. It was also a reminder of just how much Scotland has already achieved in renewable energy, and how far it still has to go before the political promises match the physical reality.
Scotland generates the equivalent of over 100 percent of its electricity demand from renewable sources, a figure that politicians repeat so often it has almost lost its impact. Wind, hydro, and a growing portfolio of marine energy projects have transformed Scotland’s energy landscape in barely two decades. The ScotWind leasing round, which awarded seabed rights for new offshore wind projects in early 2022, was hailed as a generational opportunity. The ambition is enormous: net zero by 2045, five years ahead of the UK target. Green hydrogen. Floating offshore wind. Tidal stream. Scotland talks about renewable energy the way other countries talk about their most prized national assets.
But I have spent the past several months speaking with developers, engineers, community groups, and local officials involved in these projects, and the picture they paint is considerably more complicated than the political narrative suggests.
The planning system is the first and most persistent obstacle. Onshore wind projects in Scotland routinely take four to seven years from initial proposal to operational turbines. The process involves environmental impact assessments, community consultations, grid connection applications, and planning reviews that can be challenged at multiple stages. I spoke with one developer in the Highlands who described a project that took six years to get through planning, during which time the technology advanced so significantly that the originally proposed turbines were obsolete by the time consent was granted. He had to restart parts of the application process with updated specifications.
Grid infrastructure is another critical bottleneck. Scotland has abundant renewable energy resources, particularly in the north and on its islands. But the transmission network was not designed to carry large volumes of electricity from remote locations to the population centres in the central belt and further south. The cost of grid upgrades is staggering, and the timeline for delivering them stretches into the 2030s. SSE Networks and Scottish Power Energy Networks are investing billions, but the physical reality of building new transmission lines across difficult terrain, through communities that often object to their visual impact, means that progress is slow. Meanwhile, renewable projects that are ready to generate sit in a queue waiting for grid connections that may be years away.
Supply chain capacity is a concern that comes up in almost every conversation. The ScotWind projects alone will require thousands of skilled workers, hundreds of vessels, and manufacturing capacity for foundations, cables, and turbine components that does not yet exist in Scotland at sufficient scale. The Global Energy Group’s facility at Nigg and the planned investment at the Cromarty Firth are encouraging, but the competition for supply chain resources is fierce. Every country bordering the North Sea is pursuing offshore wind simultaneously. Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Germany are all building capacity. Scotland cannot assume that supply chain investment will arrive simply because the seabed leases have been awarded.
Funding is perhaps the most sensitive issue. The UK Government controls the Contracts for Difference mechanism that provides revenue certainty for renewable energy projects. The disastrous 2023 allocation round, in which no offshore wind projects secured contracts because the strike price was set too low, demonstrated how dependent Scotland’s energy ambitions are on decisions made in Westminster. The subsequent rounds have been more successful, but the underlying tension remains. Scotland sets the targets; the UK controls the primary funding mechanism.
Green hydrogen, which the Scottish Government has championed as a transformative opportunity, faces its own challenges. The economics are not yet proven at scale. Electrolyser technology is improving but remains expensive. The market for green hydrogen is largely theoretical, with few confirmed offtake agreements that would justify the capital expenditure required to build production facilities. I visited the site of a proposed hydrogen hub in Orkney, where the potential is genuinely exciting. Orkney has surplus renewable electricity, existing expertise in marine energy, and a community that is engaged and supportive. But the project is still seeking the combination of public and private funding needed to move beyond the pilot phase.
Community benefit is another area where rhetoric and reality diverge. Wind farm developers are required to provide community benefit funds, typically around 5,000 pounds per megawatt of installed capacity per year. In some communities, this money has been transformative, funding new village halls, broadband infrastructure, and local services. In others, the funds have been poorly managed or have become a source of division. Several community council members I spoke with expressed frustration that the scale of industrial development happening around them, enormous turbines visible from every window, generates relatively modest returns for their communities.
None of this is to suggest that Scotland’s renewable energy ambitions are misguided. They are not. The resource is real, the technology works, and the economic opportunity is substantial. Scotland could, genuinely, become one of Europe’s leading clean energy producers. But getting from where we are now to where the politicians say we will be requires solving hard, practical problems that do not lend themselves to inspiring speeches.
Planning reform needs to be more than a talking point. Grid investment needs to accelerate dramatically. The supply chain needs coordinated, sustained support, not sporadic announcements. And communities need to see tangible benefits that justify the transformation of their landscapes.
The wind was still blowing when I left Nigg that afternoon. It always is, up there. Scotland has the resource. The question is whether it has the institutional capacity and political seriousness to turn that resource into the economic transformation it keeps promising. I remain hopeful, but I would feel more confident if the people making the promises spent more time listening to the people trying to deliver on them.
