Current status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 10 June 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what opportunities it has identified to exceed current EU standards in encouraging sustainable energy production from commercial, industrial and waste management sources.
The Scottish Government is committed to maintaining alignment with the EU where such alignment would be possible and meaningful in protecting and advancing the standards we share.
On waste management sources of energy, where waste is unavoidable and unrecyclable, the Scottish Government’s aim is to recover the highest value, while minimising as far as possible the environmental impacts of managing this waste, including through energy recovery. The second report of the Review of the Role Incineration in Scotland’s Waste Hierarchy made recommendations on the decarbonisation of residual waste, and the Scottish Government accepted these recommendations in full or in principle, including on the expansion of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, ending the unnecessary incineration of plastic, incentivising heat networks and supporting the development of Carbon Capture Utilisation Storage (CCUS).
On heat networks, the Heat Network Support Unit, sponsored by the Scottish Government, supports heat network projects through the pre-capital stages of development through advice and funding. This support includes offering advice and grant funding for developing feasibility studies, Outline Business Cases (OBCs) and project commercialisation. The HNSU has supported several projects that seek to utilise excess heat from Energy from Waste facilities. This includes a recent feasibility study with Glasgow City Council, exploring the opportunity to utilise heat from the Glasgow Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre (GRREC). Through Scotland’s Heat Network Fund and its predecessor the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme, the Scottish Government has provided approximately £32.8 million combined funding for heat networks which utilise recovered heat, including two projects using recovered heat from waste facilities in both Aberdeen and Midlothian and a project recovering Heat from a Waste water treatment facility in Stirling. In addition, the Scottish Government, in collaboration with Scottish
Enterprise, will shortly publish a guidance document which provides information about how we can improve the capture and utilisation of heat from industrial and commercial processes.
In taking these things forward we will of course be mindful of existing and new EU legislation, like the EU Waste Framework Directive, Industrial Emissions Directive and Renewable Energy Directive.
The second report of the Review of the Role Incineration in Scotland’s Waste Hierarchy can be found here: 1 Introduction - Decarbonisation of residual waste infrastructure: report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).
The Government Response to the second report of the Review of the Role Incineration in Scotland’s Waste Hierarchy: Supporting documents - Decarbonisation of residual waste infrastructure: Scottish Government response - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).