How technology will drive our net-zero journey
Shaun Milne reports on how Scottishpower is leading the way in making sure the infrastructure is in place as we move towards a future of entirely green energy
Iget worried about being seen as being clichéd when I say that this is the most important point in time, but I really, genuinely believe that” says Scott Mathieson, director of regulation and planning at SP Energy Networks, part of the Scottishpower group.
“I’ve got two teenage children making their way through education, one in higher education, the other finding his way through his Highers this year, and the future outlook for them at the moment without action is not great. But we can address that if COP26 can deliver direction and clarity of purpose.
“That requires all of us – the utility companies – to participate effectively, which is why Scottishpower has taken a lead role in sponsoring and supporting this event. It is because we believe we have a pivotal responsibility to help facilitate net-zero.
“If the government and our regulator can get around us and help catalyse and support that, I believe the government’s objectives are realistic and can be achieved.”
It is a disarmingly honest, candid statement from such a senior energy executive and there’s real optimism in his voice. “I’m a child of the 1970s,” Mathieson says, “I wasn’t used to gas central heating – there were at that point grants for removing lead from houses, for getting roofs upgraded and what not.
“The electricity system was being built around about that same point. People were bold in terms of the roll-out of the infrastructure required. We need to see that again.”
Scottishpower is part of the Iberdrola Group, one of the world’s largest utility companies and a world leader in wind energy. It is the first UK energy provider to go full-on clean electricity generation thanks to on and offshore wind power.
That has led to them creating thousands of green jobs already, and they are investing £10 billion between 2020 and 2025 not just in generating clean electricity but also in the infrastructure, networks, smart grids, storage, and other technologies needed. Its goal is to help cut emissions by 68 per cent within eight years in the UK and be carbon neutral no later than 2050.
“It’s a responsibility,” Mathieson admits, “but it’s also a very exciting challenge to be at the heart of the netzero transformation. The electricity system is going to be critical.”
First, they need to get it fit for purpose – some of the projects for an electric future are as eye-watering in the capacity challenge as they are encouraging.
“Over the next five years, we see the need to accommodate 700,000 to a million electric vehicles on Scotland’s streets with appropriate charging infrastructure,” he says. “We could see half a million air source heat pumps in everything from social housing to private ownership housing and into industrial and commercial premises.”
And that’s where Mathieson’s team comes in. He explains: “Although we deal with electricity, it is like road infrastructure. We maintain the motorways, the A roads, the B roads and the private roads that effectively allow the electricity to flow from the people that generate it into customers’ homes.
“We have a really important role in making sure that it is a secure system and that we also deliver the highest levels of quality service. I look across the Clyde from my office in Glasgow, I see the new Barclays Bank headquarters being built. That type of development is only possible because of the type of investment we are putting into the grid.
“If I look just beyond that to the Caledonian depot, we have been involved in a project with First Bus in Glasgow through our Green Recovery Fund that focused on us pumping £20 million of investment into other businesses looking to electrify their transport or to
“It’s a responsibility, but it’s also a very exciting challenge to be at the heart of the transformation. The electricity system is going to be critical”
change their heat systems, and indeed into education for new skills for people who would be installing that type of equipment.
“Working with Firstbus we piloted investment of their first fully electric bus in Glasgow, we provided charging infrastructure for them, and they were allowed through that pilot project to grow in confidence that the bus could work in all climates on difficult routes.
“Glasgow is a pretty hilly city so they were able to put an electric bus through the challenges that our weather brings – rainy, dark evenings, cold weather when the heating is on, the lighting on, and everything is on in that bus. They proved that was a viable means of transport that they should be confident in for the future.”
Firstbus is now investing in increasing the number of electric buses in its fleet to 150. SP Energy Networks also invested in the network for the “blue-light” community of emergency services, including £1m inside the COP26 corridor alone. And there is more to come.
Mathieson expands: “Over the next period in our distribution business alone, we will be looking to create 1,800 jobs, 500 entirely new jobs directly related to the net-zero transition.
“In the transmission business, which is investing another £2bn, we are already out and recruiting 130 staff within the Central Belt to go into high quality transmission jobs whether the industrial-grade end of building things, or up at the high end of the designing and engineering of the projects.”
It’s this direction of travel that will, says Barry Carruthers, Scottishpower’s hydrogen director, transform Scotland’s workforce from being fossil fuel-driven to green and renewable.
“It is pace that will win the argument,” he says, “pace to build things at scale, like the future of offshore wind off Scotland and the scale of jobs that is going to create. So, if people are sitting there with their fossil-fuel career right now, they need to know that they can jump to that green job whether it’s floating offshore wind, the production of green hydrogen or battery technology.
“Everything from a car
mechanic being able to retrain [and stop] worrying about oil spills and fluids kicking about a combustion engine, to being able to look at electric motors and electric car maintenance schedules, for example.”
The push for green hydrogen – clean as opposed to its grey or blue fossil fuel, emissions-creating counterparts – is key to that.
Carruthers says: “Electrify everything and that will get us about 80 or 90 per cent of the way to decarbonisation. The last critical step is that 10 to 20 per cent where green hydrogen starts to fill in those gaps.
“On a day-to-day, societal benefit to us, we shouldn’t have diesel buses driving by us on the main street, we shouldn’t have our rubbish being collected by loud, noisy, polluting diesel refuse collection vehicles.
“Day-to-day we should be able to get on zero-emission public transport, served by zero-emission public services. Something we should all see is cleaner air, less pollution and of course the health benefits of less respiratory illnesses.”
Which explains why they are excited about the prospect of transforming the UK’S largest onshore windfarm at Whitelee just outside Glasgow into the UK’S first true hybrid clean energy park.
“We do have the onshore wind, we have the 50MW battery in construction, and to bring along hopefully new solar panel PV and green hydrogen production – it is the epitome of what does clean energy look like.”
And if it goes ahead, he predicts it could truly revolutionise how we fuel up.
“The great thing about green hydrogen is that it’s complexly versatile. We could make various small amounts of green hydrogen right at a bus depot, in a rural coastal setting where they have very little other industry, but they have every right to zero-emission public transport for example. Or we can do much of it on a larger scale in an industrial environment. It allows us to do big and small and to do both rural and urban right across the country. “When you think of passenger cars, light vans, even medium-scale vans they are very well-suited for electrification so that’s going to lend itself to charging at home, charging at your workplace or enroute.
“When it comes to the very high end of transport in terms of very heavy-duty vehicles, and long-range vehicles like HGVS, coachtype areas, that’s going to lend itself to hydrogen refuelling because it is very, very similar to the diesel forecourt experience.”
The key piece for such businesses now, though, is in the use of capital grants to encourage more investment in the sector and for people to adapt.
Carruthers says: “COP26 should really be about the COP of action, it should no longer be about just setting targets and just getting a paperwork agreement.
“The legacy from COP26 should be more zeroemission vehicles on the road, it should be new legislation about carbon emissions coming from industry driving change.
He concludes: “It should be things we see and experience every day.”