Identification info

Metadata Language

English

Character set

UTF8

Dataset Reference Date (Publication)

2014-04-01

Dataset Reference Date (Revision)

2023-11-20

Identifier

www.gov.scot / SG_EnergySupplyLocations

Maintenance and update frequency

As needed

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

• Energy resources

GEMET - Concepts, version 2.4

• energy demand

• heat supply

• energy supply

IPSV Subjects List

• Energy efficiency

Limitations on Public Access

Other restrictions

Other constraints

No limitations to public access

Use constraints

Other restrictions

Other constraints

Open Government Licence

Other constraints

Available under the terms of the Open Government Licence. The following attribution statement must be used to acknowledge the source of the information: © Scottish Government © Crown copyright and database rights (insert year) OS AC0000849451.

Spatial representation type

Vector

Denominator

10000

Topic category

• Environment
• Economy
• Society

Code

S92000003

 

Code

EPSG:4258

Code

EPSG:27700

Distribution Information

 

Data quality info

Quality Scope

Dataset

Statement

The data on energy supply covers sources of energy that are either existing (‘operational’) or planned (‘in development’). The ‘in development’ category covers the various stages of the planning system (e.g., application submitted, awaiting construction etc.), as well as sources that are under construction. The data includes supply points that provide heat and/or electricity.

This data was first included in the Scotland Heat Map 2022 (which was released to local authorities in November 2023). It replaces the energy supply dataset used in earlier versions of the Scotland Heat Map. The previous dataset was developed over a number of years and was last updated in 2016. It was extremely difficult and resource intensive to fully update and avoid duplication of records. As a result, the new data focuses on larger installations; data that is publicly available, or that can be made public; and data that is relatively straightforward to update. It also excludes information on sites with the potential to supply energy but where there is no record in the data sources used that there are plans to do so. For example, it no longer shows the location of local authority cooling towers unless they form part of an existing or planned energy supply point that is included in one of the source datasets.

Data on existing and planned energy supply comes three sources.

- The UK Government’s Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD)

- The UK Government’s Major Power Producers (MPP) dataset

- The Energy Saving Trust’s (EST’s) Renewable Heat Database (RHD)

REPD and MPP offer readily available data with good coverage of Scotland and location information in the form of x and y coordinates for the majority of records. It was also possible to filter the data they contained to largely avoid the creation of duplicate records due to overlap between the two sources. A small number of records from the RHD was added to provide information on larger installations that provide heat only and therefore would not be expected to be included in either of the other data sources (as they focus on electricity generation).

Records from the MPP dataset have only been included where they have a fuel type of fossil fuel or nuclear, or where they have a renewable fuel type but their installed capacity is less than 1 MW. This is to avoid overlap with the REPD as much as possible. Records from the RHD have only been included where they output heat only; their installed capacity is 1 MW or higher; and they can be shared. The 2020 quarter 4 extract of REPD has been used. MPP data was provided by the UK Government in late 2020. The RHD provides installation information as at end December 2021.

Data from the three data sources is combined to create the energy supply points locations dataset. Information on the primary technology or primary fuel type from each dataset is grouped into energy supply categories (e.g., ‘Anaerobic Digestion’, ‘Biomass’, ‘Fossil Fuel’). For REPD, the ‘technology type’ field is used, for MPP ‘primary fuel’ is used and for RHD ‘Technology’ is used for this grouping.

Installed capacity, or planned installed capacity, is grouped into size categories. Records with capacity greater than or equal to 45 kW (kilowatts) and less than 1 MW (Megawatt) are assigned to the ‘Small to medium’ size category. Records with capacity of 1 MW or above are assigned to the ‘Large’ size category. In previous versions of the heat map, energy supply data included records in the ‘Micro’ size category (less than 45 kW), however there are no records in this category in this new energy supply data.

Users should be aware of the following limitations of the energy supply data:

- There may be some cases where the same installation/site appears more than once. Records from the MPP dataset and RHD have been selected to avoid overlap with the REPD as much as possible. In addition, the criteria that records from the RHD should be supplying (or planned to supply) heat only should also reduce the likelihood of overlap between it and the MPP dataset (as the MPP dataset is concerned with the production of electricity). It is however possible that some overlap between the three data sources remains. In addition, there may be duplication within the REPD itself (i.e., where the same site appears more than once).

- Locations in some cases will be approximate only as they use the population centroid of the site’s postcode, rather than location of the installation itself.

- Some large (installed capacity of 1 MW or above) installations that supply heat only will be missing from the data because they would not be included in either the REPD or the MPP dataset and are in the RHD but cannot be shared.

- Planning status and installed capacity may have changed since the source data used to create this dataset was extracted.

There are 823 energy supply points in the existing energy supply layer. 477 (58%) are operational and 346 (42%) are in development. The vast majority – 743, 90% - have installed capacity of 1 MW or more.

More information on the energy supply data can be found in the Scotland Heat Map 2022 User Guide, which is available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotland-heat-map-documents/

 

Metadata

File identifier

755cf8f1-6425-4de3-8799-5d6e6099d3c8 XML

Metadata Language

English

Resource type

Dataset

Metadata Date

2025-02-07T10:22:07.539Z

Metadata standard name

UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version

2.3