If I was a betting man my money would be on Scotland closing 2024 with an average carbon intensity that meets the 2026 target of < 25 gCO₂/kWh (very low). That would be quite the Hogmanay gift.

There’s no doubt that North of Scotland will break its record for the number of days at zero emissions. In 2023 this stood at 195 days or 53% or the year. At the beginning of October 2024 North of Scotland had 185 days at zero. My guesstimate for 2024 is 235 days or 64% - it was a leap year, so I’m dividing by 366 days.

Looking forward to the next couple of years, the pipeline for renewables is strong. There’s 10s of GWs of wind planned, but what signals a change in the market is that we’re finally seeing an uptick in C&I solar with multiple projects in the tens of MWs coming to fruition. As more storage comes online this gives me confidence that we’ll continue to move towards a zero emissions grid even as it comes under pressure to deliver more and more electricity.

Provided we don’t squander all that additional renewable electricity capacity on creating hydrogen that nobody wants or powering CCSU plants then we’ll maybe get there by the end of 2027.