Offshore investments expected to connect into Scotland: EIR release

Information requested

“In July 2022, National Grid ESO published Pathway to 2030: A holistic network design to support offshore wind deployment for net zero.

It recommended £54 billion of investments (£32 billion offshore and £22 billion onshore).

Please provide any information held by the Scottish Government on the amount of these investments which are expected to be made in Scotland. In the case of offshore investments, please provide any information held by the Scottish Government on the magnitude of offshore investments expected to connect into Scotland.”

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

I attach a copy of the information you requested in the attached document.

Some of the information you have requested is available from https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/eso-publishes-pathway-2030-major-step-deliver-50gw-offshore-wind-2030 (Document 5).

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format.  If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(e) (internal communications), of the EIRs applies to that information.  The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202300355757 - Information Released - Annex A

File type

1 page PDF

File size

93.8 kB

EIR 202300355757 - Information Released - Annex B

File type

8 page PDF

File size

287.6 kB