2. To ask the Scottish Government what further discussions it plans to have with the United Kingdom Government regarding lifting the 100kW deployment cap on its feed-in tariffs scheme for renewable energy generation from community and farm-owned micro hydro schemes in Scotland. (S6O-02457)

As I have said, the Scottish Government continues to meet the UK Government regularly to discuss a range of issues to do with the energy market and tariffs, in particular, including the provision of support schemes for renewable energy generation projects across the commercial and community sectors.

Scottish Government support remains available through our community and renewable energy scheme—CARES—to help communities to assess their priorities for net zero, including potential opportunities for energy generation.

Constituents have shared their frustration at being able to produce 40 per cent more electricity than the current cap but being unable to export it, as doing so would result in them losing all their feed-in tariffs.

In the face of the climate and energy crisis, does the minister agree that the UK Government should enable Scotland to do all that it can to harness its potential for renewable energy, especially from community and farm micro hydro schemes?

I absolutely do. I think that the UK Government is missing a trick because, cumulatively, such community energy schemes could be generating a huge amount of renewable electricity. Scotland’s and the UK’s net zero ambitions depend heavily on an energy system that supplies affordable, resilient and clean energy. Expanding community and locally owned renewable energy projects will be key to realising a fair and just transition, which is why we continue to press the UK Government to implement reforms to the energy markets that better support community and local projects.

We continue to take our own actions through schemes such as CARES, which support our progress towards our ambition of 2GW of community and locally owned energy by 2030. The member will be pleased to hear that we are almost halfway towards achieving that target.

Public bodies could play a much bigger role in supporting community schemes by using power purchase agreements in the national framework agreement for best supply of electricity, but, in written answers to me, the cabinet secretary has confirmed that no such agreements are in place. What is the Scottish Government doing to support public bodies and community groups that wish to create micro hydro or other renewable schemes and generate income from them?

I refer Ms Boyack to my earlier answer about CARES, which is doing exactly that. To date, CARES has helped more than 900 organisations and has provided more than £60 million in funding to communities, and it has supported progress towards our ambition of 2GW, as I said.

At the end of last year, there was an estimated 908MW of community and locally owned renewable energy capacity, estimated to produce nearly 2,000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy annually. We want to see that go up, so I would recommend that the bodies that Sarah Boyack has been speaking to get involved with CARES. If there is anything further that we can be doing, she should of course write to me to make suggestions. I am always willing to listen.