Newly released figures have flagged up the full extent of Scotland's achievements on the renewable energy front. The Scottish government showed that clean energy represented a whopping 90% of all the electricity used in the country during 2019.

The news comes with one year remaining until the target of 100% for gross electricity consumption needs to be met for renewables. However, this target looks on track with last year's figure already at 90%, compared to 76% in 2018.

The current amount of clean and renewable electricity now being produced is enough to power every home in Scotland for over three years.

Most of the country's renewable capacity comes from wind power, particularly from onshore wind developments, although offshore wind generation grew to 3.3 TWh last year against 1.3 TWh. This was largely because the Beatrice Wind farm came online last May.

Various other offshore wind farms are in progress and will go live on the Moray Firth, bringing an extra 13 GWh online in the near future.

WWF Scotland applauded the news, saying that it was excellent to see how far the country was making progress in meeting its electricity demand from low-cost, low-carbon energy sources. They explained that targets aside, growing green energy capacity remained the key to building a carbon-neutral society.

This, they said, was just one reason why it was so positive to see onshore wind now able to compete on the open electricity market.

The government has been criticised in recent years for failing to stick to a coherent energy policy and for changing the milestones when it came to key areas such as subsidies for renewable energy projects. Now, however, clean energy has become so cost-effective that it can hold its own without support in the open energy market.