Talk:Renewable energy in Scotland

First sentence

The first sentence defines "renewable energy in Scotland" as "a topic". Surely we can do better. Scanning the lead for something more useful and substantial, while still representing the breadth of the topic, I found this sentence, which I think would be more appropriate, and also more in line with what a sample of other "Renewable energy in ..." articles have as a first sentence.

"In 2020 a quarter of total energy consumption, including heat and transportation, was met from renewables and the Scottish government target is half by 2030."

I would go ahead and drop it in as a new first sentence, but if we did that, the place where that sentence is now would also need to be reworked. There's also the question of the 2005 reference from the current first sentence, which I think is no longer important, but I'm reluctant to just drop that without considering whether it is still useful somewhere in the article. Ccrrccrr (talk) 11:37, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I figured out a way to preserve the flow of the paragraph that I lifted that sentence from. I'm hoping that other people agree that this is an improvement, even if it's not as carefully planned out and developed by consensus as I would like. Ccrrccrr (talk) 14:03, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

The current first sentence: "The production of renewable energy in Scotland is a topic that came to the fore in technical, economic, and political terms during the opening years of the 21st century."

A minimal edit to avoid the content-free "definition": "The topic of renewable energy in Scotland came to the fore in technical, economic, and political terms during the opening years of the 21st century."

I still think that's a poor first sentence, as it describes interest in the subject, rather than the subject itself but since my more significant improvement was rejected, this might be better than no improvement at all. I hope that some more people will comment on this discussion so that there is some kind of consensus.

Another option would be to focus on a definition, perhaps using an official national definition of what counts as renewable energy. Ccrrccrr (talk) 11:53, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Here's a specific definition per the government (https://nationalperformance.gov.scot/energy-renewable-sources)

Renewable sources of energy includes wind, wave and tidal, solar power and hydroelectricity. Renewable energy includes solar power, wind, wave and tidal, and hydroelectricity. Solid renewable energy sources consist of wood, straw, short rotation coppice, other biomass and the biodegradable fraction of wastes. Gaseous renewables consist of landfill gas and sewage gas.

That's too long for a first sentence, of course, but a possible first sentence could be something like

Renewable energy in Scotland includes renewable electricity sources, solid biomass fuels, and biogas. Ccrrccrr (talk) 13:01, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I went ahead with this edit, and removed this reference as I don't see that it's still relevant.

Ccrrccrr (talk) 22:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Summary of Scotland's resource potential table

Does someone have sources for the remainder of this table? Or can we align the whole thing with the info given by scottishrenewables.com so it can be sustainably updated over time? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:45, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

In addition, I note that there is an error in that the terawatt hour column appears to be terawatt hours per day, which is important to note, not only for the sake of being correct but because one might assume, for example that it is TWh/year Ccrrccrr (talk) 17:33, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

"Capacity" is not delivery

Article is heavy on word "capacity" (potential to deliver energy units) but lacking on actual production numbers of energy delivered, at least historically. Highly misleading. By now there should be actual production numbers. Without actual production numbers, this is just propaganda. 2600:6C48:7006:200:5C10:C716:750B:C3B2 (talk) 00:00, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree. it keeps talking about generating "113%" of demand, but how much was actually used? 31.188.17.162 (talk) 01:23, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

You could look at the 'Potential Energy' column and read note (b). The phrase "generating 113% of demand" would mean that of the energy produced at least 13% was exported. Except in unusual cases e.g. Eigg, if electricty is generated it is generally used, save for that lost in transmission. This applies to all technologies of generation, albeit with differences in the %age involved depending on various complex factors. Ben MacDui 11:22, 31 March 2024 (UTC)