Wind power and CO2 emissions: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00375
Date received: 1 February 2018
Date responded: 22 February 2018

Information requested

Information from independent sources, the wind industry or their trade organisations, which is currently used by Scottish Government officials, ministers and departments to prove that wind power installations:

1. Save CO2 emissions.

2. Provide benefits outweighing intermittency losses and shortfall coverage.

Response

The answer to your question is that there is quite a lot of literature around the fact that wind saves CO2 emissions. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) does a short FAQ section which answers your question directly though: https://www.theccc.org.uk/faqs/#faq4– they will likely do fuller reports covering this in more detail as well. Also, UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) would be a good source – the following link shows that wind now delivers more power than coal, displacing it from the generation mix, and with a much lower carbon intensity, therefore provides a reduction in emissions: http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/news/winds-of-change.html.

Also, as per the Energy Strategy: http://www.gov.scot/energystrategy
we support the drive towards a balanced energy system, which comes from a range of technologies, one of which is wind generation. Other flexible generation is used to support intermittent wind generation when the wind isn't blowing (natural gas, etc.). So we would generally say that no technology is considered exclusive and that it is through this balancing that full benefits and coverage are found.

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