Written evidence submitted by Mineral Products Association Scotland (NRG0012)

Introduction              

Mineral Products Association Scotland (MPAS) is the trade association for the Scottish mineral products sector, including aggregates, asphalt, cement, concrete, dimension stone, lime, mortar and industrial sand industries. MPAS membership is made up of independent SME quarrying companies, as well as major international and global companies. MPAS members provide 100% of cement production in Scotland, 90% of aggregates production, 95% of asphalt production, and over 70% of ready-mixed and precast concrete production.

As the largest supplier by volume to the UK-wide construction industry, our sector is essential for much of the energy and related supply chain infrastructure that will be necessary for Scotland to transition to net zero. With cement as an energy-intensive industry, we also take a keen interest in the switch to cleaner energy sources.

We believe it is essential that all parties – the UK Government, the Scottish Government, and GB Energy – work together to prioritise local supply chains for clean energy infrastructure, such as floating offshore wind. This is particularly important in light of the UK Government’s stated ambition of decarbonising the grid by 2030, at a time when businesses and households are looking to electrification as a means of decarbonising their own energy usage. Facilitating this will also require a redoubling of ongoing efforts to accelerate the process of obtaining a new or upgraded grid connection.

Energy Infrastructure and Supply Chains

MPAS welcomes the relative success of the most recent allocation round for renewables projects, particularly the success of the Green Volt floating offshore wind bid in Scottish waters. We hope that future allocation rounds will build on this success, especially in relation to offshore and floating offshore wind.

These projects will be essential both to delivering the net zero transition in Scotland and to delivering the UK Government’s ambition to decarbonise the grid. However, delivering them at pace will require significant investment in local supply chains, in order to ensure both that these projects have the materials they need, and to ensure that they deliver the maximum contribution to a just transition by making most use of local suppliers.

Locally produced concrete, for example, has significant potential to provide a supply chain for floating offshore wind substructures in Scotland. This would help keep supply chains for these projects local and secure, limiting transport emissions and maximising socioeconomic benefits for communities within Scotland.

Facilitating the development of this supply chain will require a strategic approach. Meeting the UK-wide target of 24 GW of floating offshore wind capacity by 2045 would require nine times the volume of concrete poured at Hinkley Point C. A single concrete substructure can have a mass of up to 20,000 tonnes, which would be 1/60th of Scotland’s entire current annual production of ready-mixed concrete.

Action needs to be taken, therefore, to develop port capacity and ensure that the Scottish concrete industry can itself rely on a steady supply of aggregates in order to meet demand. MPAS has long advocated for the creation of a Scottish Minerals Forum, including industry representatives, the Scottish Government, and other stakeholders to ensure aggregates supply is managed effectively.

Grid Connections and Fuel Switching

Many businesses in the aggregates industry are looking to electrification as a means of reducing emissions on quarry sites and thereby contributing to the net zero transition. Many quarries, especially those in remote areas of Scotland, are off-grid and currently rely on fossil fuels for energy. Some are also looking to install renewable energy capacity on-site, and to connect to the grid in order to sell any surplus energy they might generate.

However, high costs for new grid connections and upgrades, as well as long wait times for new or upgraded connections to be installed, are a significant barrier to this process. While we welcome the tentative steps that have recently been made in this area, it is essential that all stakeholders, including the National Energy System Operator, redouble their efforts to make the process of obtaining a new or upgraded connection faster and more affordable.

Scotland is also home to one cement plant, at Dunbar. Cement production requires temperatures of up to 1450°C, requiring significant quantities of heating fuels, which historically have been fossil fuels.

The UK-wide cement and concrete industry has produced a roadmap to net zero by 2050 (https://thisisukconcrete.co.uk/TIC/media/root/Perspectives/MPA-UKC-Roadmap-to-Beyond-Net-Zero_October-2020.pdf), of which switching to alternative heating fuels is a major component. The UK Government, Scottish Government, and all other stakeholders should focus on developing sustainable and affordable supplies of alternative heating fuels, such as green hydrogen and waste-derived biomass, as well as ensuring that while supply of these fuels is limited, that supply is prioritised for energy-intensive industries like cement, where it can make the maximum contribution towards the net zero transition.

The largest individual component of the cement industry’s net zero roadmap is CCUS, which is essential to decarbonising the industry as carbon dioxide is an unavoidable by-product of the chemical processes which produce clinker, the main constituent of cement. We welcome the UK Government’s recent commitment of £21.7 billion to develop CCUS infrastructure, including the Acorn project in Scotland. However, it is key that all stakeholders work collaboratively to deliver these projects on the ground, and that further action is taken to ensure access to CCUS for ‘dispersed’ major industrial sites which are not located in the immediate vicinity of the four clusters.

January 2025