Annabelle Ewing's Vision for a Scottish Renewable Energy Grid

Scotland stands at a crossroads in how it powers its homes, factories and transport networks. Annabelle Ewing, the SNP candidate for Ochil and South Perthshire, has set out an ambitious blueprint to knit together the country's wind, tidal and solar resources into a single renewable energy grid that can deliver clean, affordable power for generations. Her plan emphasises community ownership, skilled green jobs and a modernised transmission network that finally matches the scale of Scotland's natural endowment.

Drawing on her legal background and her experience representing Scotland at Westminster, Ewing argues that independence is the surest path to capturing the full economic value of the energy transition. A sovereign Scottish grid, she maintains, would be free to pursue a coordinated industrial strategy, align infrastructure spending with decarbonisation targets, and prevent the leakage of profits that currently flows south to larger energy suppliers.

A fully integrated grid for a fragmented nation

Scotland already generates more renewable electricity per head than almost any comparable nation, yet much of it is curtailed because the wires that carry power to consumers are stuck in the wrong place. Ewing's plan proposes a publicly owned national grid operator that would plan, build and maintain high voltage transmission lines with a single mandate: to maximise clean generation. The operator would coordinate with local distribution networks so that small community schemes, farm-scale wind and rooftop arrays all feed into the same balanced system rather than competing for limited capacity.

The model borrows heavily from the way integrated networks are managed elsewhere. In Australia, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) balances generation and demand across thousands of kilometres, juggling hydro in Tasmania, solar in Queensland and gas in Victoria under a single market roof. Ewing suggests Scotland could adopt a similarly unified approach, replacing the current patchwork of private and public bodies with a single accountable institution that answers to Scottish ministers rather than to shareholders.

Wind, tidal and solar: maximising what Scotland already has

The plan identifies three pillars of generation. Onshore and offshore wind remain the backbone, with proposals to accelerate the consenting process for new sites, particularly in the north-east and around the Moray Firth. Tidal stream technology, still maturing but with world-leading potential around the Pentland Firth and the Scottish islands, would receive ring-fenced research funding and a guaranteed first route to market. Solar, long dismissed as a Scottish afterthought, would be expanded on suitable south-facing roofs, on repurposed industrial land and on agrivoltaic sites where sheep continue to graze beneath the panels.

Crucially, Ewing wants generation to be matched with storage. The blueprint backs pumped hydro at existing reservoir sites, encourages household and grid-scale batteries, and supports green hydrogen production in areas where wind output regularly exceeds demand. Together, these would smooth out the intermittency that critics often raise and ensure that Scottish factories can rely on clean power around the clock.

Learning from Australia's rooftop revolution

Australia offers a particularly striking lesson in how quickly a grid can be transformed when households take ownership. More than a third of detached homes in sunny states such as Queensland and South Australia now carry rooftop panels, and on mild spring days the country briefly reached a point where solar met the entire midday demand of the National Electricity Market. That success, however, has also exposed a headache familiar to grid planners: when the sun shines, exports overwhelm the local network, forcing operators to switch off generation or pay neighbours to absorb the surplus.

Ewing's blueprint takes this Australian experience seriously. It proposes a Scottish "grid ready" standard for new housing, requiring smart inverters, bidirectional meters and the wiring needed for vehicle-to-home batteries. The standards would be developed in close consultation with the Australian Energy Market Commission's recent work on consumer energy resources, and would help Scotland avoid the duck curve problems that have emerged in Perth and Adelaide.

Jobs, bills and a just transition for every community

Behind the engineering sits a deliberate economic strategy. Ewing estimates that a fully integrated renewable grid could support tens of thousands of skilled jobs in construction, electrical installation, marine engineering and project management, many of them in the very rural and coastal communities that have powered Scotland for decades. A new Scottish Energy Skills Academy would offer apprenticeships, reskilling places for oil and gas workers, and pathways for young people leaving school.

Household bills would be stabilised through a regulated tariff structure and a social energy tariff for low-income families, modelled loosely on Australia's Victorian Energy Compare programme, which gives consumers a free, independent comparison service. Communities hosting new infrastructure would receive a guaranteed share of revenues, ensuring that the benefits of the transition flow to places like Alloa, Auchterarder and the villages of Strathearn rather than only to distant corporate headquarters.

Funding, devolution and a credible path to 2035

Ewing sets out a transparent funding mix. Borrowing powers would be used to finance the new transmission spine, repaid through a long-term levy on energy bills that is hypothecated exclusively to grid investment. Revenue from a reformed windfall tax on the largest generators would top up the skills academy and community benefit funds, while a new Scottish Green Investment Bank would crowd in pension capital from across the UK and beyond. The plan is explicit that, in the short term, Holyrood's existing powers over planning and electricity consenting must be used immediately rather than waiting for constitutional change.

To deliver the grid at the required pace, Ewing has called for a streamlined consenting authority within the Scottish Government, capable of issuing combined environmental, planning and marine licences in a single process. A snapshot of how the Scottish plan stacks up against international benchmarks helps put the ambition in context:

Indicator	Scotland today	Scotland under Ewing's plan	Comparable international case
Grid operator model	Mixed public/private split	Single public operator	Australia (AEMO)
Share of renewables in generation	Around 95% of electricity	100% by 2035	South Australia, daytime peaks already
Community revenue share	Voluntary, inconsistent	Statutory minimum	Denmark's wind co-operatives
Tidal capacity (MW)	Under 10	1,500 by 2035	Pentland Firth pilot projects
Household rooftop solar	Less than 5% of homes	40% by 2035	Queensland currently around 35%

The figures are illustrative, but they capture the scale of the shift Ewing is proposing and the international precedents that show it is achievable within a generation.

The next election will be a decisive moment for Scotland's energy future, and voters in Ochil and South Perthshire can hear more about the wider SNP programme, including the SNP's plan to tackle the housing emergency in Scotland, by visiting the campaign. Supporters are encouraged to sign up for updates, volunteer in the final weeks of the campaign and, when polling day arrives, vote SNP to back a clean, fair and proudly Scottish energy future.