SCOTLAND generated enough electricity from renewable sources last year to meet the equivalent of 90.1% of the country’s total electricity consumption.

In 2019, the electricity generated from renewable sources was enough to charge almost 6.7 billion mobile phones for a year and the amount of renewable heat generated was equivalent to the gas use of every building in Glasgow.

Overall, the amount of electricity, transport and heat energy produced in Scotland from renewable resources increased between 2017 and 2018 to 21.1%.

Commenting on the Scottish Government’s latest Annual Energy Statement, energy minister Paul Wheelhouse said: “This year’s Energy Statement shows that we are continuing to make strong progress towards building a greener, fairer and more equal society and economy and to meeting our world leading climate change targets.

“In particular, we continue to make good progress in areas such as renewable electricity with, in 2019, Scotland’s renewable electricity generation having grown to such an extent that it was able to meet the equivalent of 90.1% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption making 2019 another record breaking year for the sector. However, to decarbonise our energy intensive industries, heat in buildings and transport through electrification and other means like hydrogen, we know we need to continue to grow our renewable electricity supplies further.

“Our recent Climate Change Plan update, published this week, contains more than 100 new policies and proposals to support Scotland’s green recovery and a just transition to net zero," said Mr Wheelhouse. "The plan provides clear market signals which should give businesses the confidence to invest in a low carbon economy, hire and train people and grow the market in these areas. This will enable us to deliver emissions reductions in a way that is fair and leads to a thriving net zero economy in the future and to replicate, for other sectors like heat, the great success we have seen in electricity generation.”