Onshore wind: FOI release (reference 4869)

6 January 2021

14 January 2021

On the Scottish Development International website opens in a new window the statement "Scotland has over 60% of the UK's onshore wind capacity" is made.

Could you please provide any analysis or discussion you have relating to Scotland's percentage/share of the UK's onshore wind capacity?

The source of the “Scotland has over 60% of the UK's onshore wind capacity” claim is derived from the UK Government’s ‘Energy Trends’ publication, which is available to view here regional-renewable-statistics opens in a new window (annual) and here energy-trends-section-6-renewables opens in a new window (quarterly).

The annual data for 2019 shows that the UK had 14,124.6 MW of onshore wind capacity, of which 8,352.1 MW was in Scotland, which works out as 59.1% of the UK’s total onshore wind capacity. The latest quarterly data for Q3 2020 figures are similar and the proportion remains at 59.1%.

I can advise that we are currently in the process of updating our website to reflect these figures and state that “Scotland has around 60% of the UK’s onshore wind capacity”.