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Already, this year we’ve seen many days when we could be exporting surplus electricity from renewables. See, for example:
Today, reported in Energy Voice we see:
‘National Grid has confirmed electricity has started to flow through a cable taking renewable energy from Scotland to England and Wales. The cable runs from Hunterston, where a converter station is based, to Flintshire Bridge in Wales. The cables will transfer up to 900MW of power across several hundred kilometres to link the transmission network in Scotland with the one in England and Wales. To enable the link to operate at its full capacity of 2200 MW, further work is required at Hunterston.’
https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/159983/renewable-energy-link-scotland-wales-starts-work/
2 200Mw or 2.2Gw? Small beer! According to the Scottish Government, Current supply (September 2017) is 9.7Gwh and is projected to reach 21.3Gwh before 2020. This suggests oversupply of at least 15Gwh which can be exported.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00514475.pdf
Looking further ahead, a fully-sourced Wikipedia account, suggests that Scotland has:
- existing installed capacity of 1.3 Gwh of hydro-electric schemes
- an estimated potential of 36.5 Gwh of wind
- 25% of the estimated total wind power capacity in Europe
- An estimated potential of 7.5 Gwh of tidal power
- 14 GWh of wave power potential, 10% of EU capacity
- Total renewable electricity generating capacity may be 60 Gwh or more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland
So, with a potential to generate 60 GWh what is our domestic electricity demand? In 2015 it was only 6 Gwh!
http://euanmearns.com/scotland-gagging-on-wind-power/
We could be exporting huge amounts of energy well beyond England and Wales.
Talking-up Scotland 
I would prefer the Norwegian interconnector, which would give us potential over supply to Ireland, Wales and N England. London and SE _ngland can pay for Hinckley
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Yep I’m with you BTP. We know Westminster can’t be trusted so it makes no sense to export all into National Grid. I’d be happier with 75% of it going into European countries. At least we know we’d get paid for that.
What’s the betting we end up paying massive tariffs for renewables generating capacity being fed into the grid as happened with Longannet?
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100% double plus good
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These windmills are not owned by Scotland. Big business owns them. So how does Scotland benefit?????
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By using them as evidence for independence? By taxing their profits once we are independent.
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Energy sales accrue 5% VAT tariff which would give many millions to the Scottish Treasury.
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Good point, thanks
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Aye and no doubt we can set the tariff at a level of our own choosing. ie. Bigger
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Big business also owns the means of production of Whisky, there’s nothing to stop us from putting a levy on their use of our water per bottle.
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These companies are based in Scotland and have substantial Scottish workforces, so Scotland would gain from corporation and income taxes and from the spending power of the wages of these employees, which would raise funds from VAT and also stimulate other parts of the economy. Throughout the recent centuries there has always been a mix of private and public companies.
There is an argument for making power, like water a public utility, but that is an option for an independent Scotland.
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