Buildings currently account for ~20% of Scotland’s total greenhouse gas emissions. This means that heating systems in Scotland’s buildings will need to be replaced over the next two decades if Scotland is to meet it’s net zero emissions targets by 2045.
This energy use and efficiency transformation is recognised by both the Scottish Energy Strategy and the Energy Efficient Scotland policy, with the journey our homes, businesses and public buildings will need to take laid out in the Energy Efficient Scotland route map.
Heat Mapping
In order to understand more about the demand for heat in Scotland, heat mapping can be used to visualise and assess:
– who needs heat
– where sources of heat might come from
– how heat sources can be connected in an efficient way to reduce the cost of heat supply
– the carbon intensity of heat generation
Heat data is publicly available for Scotland, summarised at data zone and settlement geographies. It can also be visualised via the Scotland Heat Map.
Scottish local authorities can access more detailed heat map data to support the development of their Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES).
Comprehensive information on the data, the web map and the calculation of heat demand is also available and is a great example of the use of a geographical information system (GIS).
Heat Demand
The following maps show the 2020 update of the public and total heat demand for Scotland by council area per person per year using the 2019 population estimates.
Unfortunately the terms “public heat demand” and “total heat demand” are not explicitly defined. Therefore it is assumed that:
public heat demand = public sector domestic and non-domestic properties (i.e. public housing and public sector properties)
total heat demand = public heat demand plus private domestic and non-domestic properties (i.e. private housing and private business properties )
Absolute public and total heat demand figures per council area can be found using the Scotland Heat Map.
Energy Sources
Energy supply is diverse in Scotland and the Scotland Heat Map classifies energy source technologies and uses a defined set of symbols to represent them.
| Colour | Energy derived from |
|---|---|
| Yellow | Solar |
| Green | Ground |
| Blue | Water |
| Red | Combustion or nuclear |
| White | Cooling |
The following map shows the number of energy sources per council area in Scotland.
geo.fyi 