The Guardian today enthuses:
The UK’s electricity system recorded its “greenest” ever month in May after running without coal-fired electricity for a full calendar month. The National Grid, the energy system operator, said the country’s sunniest spring on record helped generate enough solar power to reduce the carbon intensity of the grid to its lowest level ever recorded. The bright and breezy weather helped wind and solar power make up about 28% of Britain’s electricity last month, narrowly behind gas-fired power generation, which made up 30% of the energy mix.
The report doesn’t mention Scotland. Why should it mention Scotland? Just this:
In Energy Voice on 28 January 2020:
‘Mammoth Highland offshore wind farms are footing a bill of around £20 million more per year than English projects to connect to the grid, according to the builder of what will be Scotland’s biggest wind venture. The levied regime in the UK, called transmission charging and set up by the energy regulator Ofgem, is understood to be a major disadvantage to projects in the windiest regions of Scotland – with a £20m per year price tag that could rise to £30m by 2025’
Not only is Scotland paying extra to connect to the grid, but the electricity is then being transferred to England, Wales and Northern Ireland to compensate for their lack of generation and to help the UK appear to be meeting its carbon reduction target. See:
Government figures reveal the massive and increasing level of transfer of electricity from Scotland to England. In 2018 only, the transfer rate increased from 13 512 GWh to nearly 25 000 GWh. 1 GWh would heat 700 000 homes!
Note that the ratio of transfers from Scotland to England compared with those from England to Scotland is 25 to 1!
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
Surely a case of Scotland subsidising England.
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The transmission charges were the reason for the closures of Cockenzie and Longannet. Energy is yet another botched policy reserved to UK government.
These two have considerable experience in their field.
Click to access Sir_Donald_Millar_and_Colin_Gibson.pdf
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The Guardian is even more metrocentric and anglocentric than papers like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Sun, the Times. They all have specifically Scottish editions, and while they are generally in line with their London/international bosses, they do present things differently and locate these in a Scottish context.
Apart from Suzanne Moore, George Monbiot and John Harris the rest of the Guardian writers are hard pressed to think beyond Hampstead, Highgate or Muswell Hill and really don’t care all that much about these provincial oiks.
So, as far as the Guardian is concerned, this is a UK story and the renewables are British/English.
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Interesting article and of course it is a case of Scotland subsidising England with energy. However, the same is true for Wales. Scotland’s electricity is not being “transferred to Wales to compensate for their lack of generation.” It’s England only. Wales actually produces twice as much as we actually use. This article explains more.
https://nation.cymru/opinion/wales-is-an-energy-colony-were-poor-because-our-dividend-is-drained-out/
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This raises fears not hopes that financiers are going to condemn, decommission and demolish the last of the UK’s coal-fire power stations, (Longannet long since demolished) instead of government stepping into to save those power plants not to burn “coal” but to burn renewable energy biomass for back-up power at times of low wind and solar generation.
Left to its own devices, the market is going to WRECK OUR CHANCES of an early efficient transition to 100% renewable energy and instead LOCK US IN TO DEPENDENCY on fossil fuel natural gas for back up power greenwashed with lies about the CCS-LEAK scam.
With a Tory government, what else but short-sighted refusing to buck the market.
This is a time of fear and helplessness as the Tory boys and girls lead the country up a dead end, not hope.
There is no hope, not when there is no Extinction Rebellion to occupy condemned coal-fired (solid fuel, remember) power stations, to save them from the bulldozer and keep our energy transition plan on track.
Industrial Vandalism: how market forces delay the transition to 100% Renewable Energy
https://scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2019/08/31/industrial-vandalism-how-market-forces-delay-the-transition-to-100-renewable-energy/
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