The Scottish Government

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 This Environmental Report has been prepared in accordance with the Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005.

Key Facts about the Renewables Action Plan

1.2 The key facts relating to the RAP are set out below:

Table 1 Key Facts

Description of the content of the Renewables Action Plan

1.3 The Scottish Government believes that a challenging, necessary and achievable objective is 20% renewable energy by 2020. This aligns with the EU target but goes higher than the 15% likely to be required of the UK as a whole. To reach this figure significant progress above current levels will be required in all sectors. The working assumption behind this proposal is that we should make progress in all three areas; electricity, transport and heat. This will provide a flexible mix, thus bringing business benefit to a wide range of economic sectors. Our preferred option to meet the 20% target is to aim for at least 50% of gross electricity consumption from renewable sources, some 11% from heat and some 10% from transport by 2020.

1.4 The Scottish Government is committed to working towards the achievement of 20% of total energy use coming from renewables sources by 2020. In context it is:

• Working with the UK Government and European partners on the implications of the proposed renewables directive, including ways in which Scotland can meet the 20% target and the implication of the directive on our long term plans to export some of our vast renewables potential to our European neighbours.
• Contributing to the Scottish element of the UK National Action Plan for renewable energy, which will be required under the proposed EU directive;
• Working with the UK Government and European partners on parallel proposed directives on Carbon Capture and Storage and Emissions Trading;
• Taking forward, with support from the European Energy and Research Commissioners, the establishment of a Scottish European Green Energy Centre. This will develop networks and partnerships with research and deployment bodies for green energy in like minded countries designed to promote the deployment of green energy technologies and contribute towards the new targets of the EPE. It will disseminate throughout Europe the results of this work, and hold seminars and conferences for academic and practitioners.

1.5 The Renewable Energy Framework ( REF), subject to extensive publication last year, sought views on the Scottish Government's proposed 20% target. It set out what we and the industry were doing and what more needed to be done to achieve this target. It also acknowledged that meeting it will require action by a range of partners - industry, government and its agencies, researchers and more.

The Renewables Action Plan ( RAP) sets out that action needed. This includes routemaps for every major renewable energy technology along with actions for supporting work such as skills, consents and the supply chain. The purpose of the plan is therefore to:

• identify what needs to happen and by when to achieve objectives;
• focus on the actions needed over the immediate 24 month period;
• establish in the public domain what will effectively become a live document - a portal for the development of the sector, subject to ongoing input and revision as new opportunities arise, as technology moves forward, and as new requirements become apparent.

Methodology

1.6 The RAP is a strategic level policy document. It will be delivered through a series of more detailed plans and projects, themselves subject to ongoing assessment to ensure a balance between environmental and sectoral needs. As a result, it is important that this SEA focuses only on those components of the RAP which set a clear, new policy direction, from which lower level plans and projects cannot depart. In the interest of clarity and succinctness, the approach to the evaluation of environmental effects should also be in proportion to the character of the RAP itself. Following screening and scoping. The assessment of the RAP has therefore included the following key steps:

1. The emerging content of the RAP as a whole was reviewed, in order to identify relevant components which should form a focus for the assessment. This concluded that the assessment should focus only on the RAP's aspiration to confirm and deliver on the Scottish Government's target of achieving 11% of heat from renewable sources. As explained in more detail in paragraph 1.7 below, other aspects of the plan have been excluded because they:

• have already been assessed in previous SEAs;
• are in the process of being assessed in current SEAs or will be in the future; or
• will have no direct environmental effects as they are procedural in character or focus on research and development, or partnership working.

2. Secondly, the environmental baseline (see Section 2) was developed further in order to help define a range of more specific questions and criteria against which the relevant sections of the RAP could be evaluated.

3. The environmental baseline was then used as a starting point for the more detailed evaluation of the effects of the renewable heat target within the RAP. Key findings were reviewed and considered in relation to the environmental effects of the RAP as a whole. Cumulative and synergistic effects were also identified.

4. Finally, mitigation and monitoring measures were defined and taken into account in the finalisation of the draft RAP.

Focusing the SEA on key changes to existing policy

1.7 To establish the scope of the SEA, at scoping and subsequently as the assessment progressed, the emerging content of the RAP was examined to identify key areas where a new and significant policy direction is likely to be set. At the SEA scoping stage, it was proposed that the assessment considers the effects of four key elements of the RAP: renewable heat, marine energy infrastructure, sustainable transport and the supply chain. However, as drafting progressed, it became clear that due to the new focus on renewable heat, and the renewable heat target, it was necessary to assess the potential environmental effects of the specific proposals. The table below describes each section of the Renewables Action Plan as a whole, to clarify how this conclusion was reached.

Table 2: Key policy proposals and requirements for SEA

1.7 As a result, the SEA of the RAP focuses only on assessing the renewable heat target of 11%, incorporating associated measures on bioenergy. No further alternatives were identified during the course of the assessment that merited comparative evaluation within the SEA, as the target is founded on clear technical knowledge and further options were not considered to be 'reasonable' at this stage.

1.8 The remainder of this report sets out the findings from the assessment of this key aspect of the plan. It is structured as follows.

• Section 2 sets out the environmental context within which the RAP has been developed. This includes a description of wider environmental objectives and a review of the environmental baseline.
• Section 3 summarises the key findings from the assessment of the environmental effects of the key sections of the RAP.
• Section 4 sets out the next steps for the RAP and its SEA.

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