Question reference: S6W-04582
- Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
- Date lodged: 23 November 2021
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Current status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 2 December 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will set a target of heating 45% of homes and 25% of commercial, industrial and public buildings from renewable sources by 2030, as recommended in the Scottish Renewables publication, Beyond COP26: Next steps for Scotland’s clean energy revolution.
Answer
The Heat in Buildings Strategy sets out that, to meet our emissions reduction targets, by 2030 the vast majority of the 170,000 off-gas homes that currently use fossil fuel heating systems, as well as at least 1 million homes currently using mains gas, must convert to zero emissions heating. Together these amount to around half of domestic properties, on top of the 11% of homes that currently use zero emissions heat. In addition, the equivalent of 50,000 non-domestic buildings, around a quarter, must also switch from fossil fuels to zero emissions heating, which will bring the total using zero emissions heat to around three quarters.
Our existing commitments are therefore broadly equivalent to those recommended by Scottish Renewables in terms of numbers of heating system conversions. However, at this time we have not adopted these as specifically renewable heat targets, in order to accommodate other sources of decarbonised heat. We will review our provisional minimum renewable heat target of 22% in the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan which we will publish for consultation in spring next year.