A CROOKED POWER PLAY

Hardly anyone believes that John Swinney has a credible route to another independence referendum in the next parliament.

But nobody should be surprised that the SNP is making bold pledges at this election about what independence would mean for Scotland.

The party has struggled, over nearly two decades in government, to keep promises it does have the powers to deliver. Pledges depending on independence are a safe space for the SNP.

Since the election isn’t about independence, they will not receive much scrutiny during the campaign. And because there isn’t going to be a referendum during the next parliament, the SNP knows that it won’t even have to try to deliver them.

Low scrutiny, zero accountability. What’s not to like from an SNP perspective? Might as well go big.

Which brings us to the most eye-catching of these pledges: that independence would cut electricity bills for Scottish households and businesses by more than a third.

Nobody knows where the figure of a third comes from: the SNP refuses to say. It was probably chosen simply because it sounds good.

And there is a superficial plausibility to the claim. After all, wind arrives free of charge. Doesn’t that mean an independent Scotland, with its many wind farms, would have very cheap electricity?

It’s not that simple. Converting wind into electricity, and delivering it to households and businesses, depends on vast networks of machinery. And that machinery does not come cheap.

Developers won’t make the huge capital investment required to construct a wind farm without certainty that they will get their money back, plus a small return on the investment.

This is why wind farms today are not constructed unless they have secured a guaranteed price for the electricity they will produce over the first 20 years of operation.

Like any other mechanical device, wind turbines wear out, and eventually reach the end of their useful life, typically after about 25 years. So this guaranteed price covers the majority of the lifespan of a wind farm.

The guaranteed prices for wind farms are decided in an auction process. Inconveniently for John Swinney, the most recent of these happened earlier this year, and the prices which emerged for the latest generation of Scottish wind farms are fully public information.

And it turns out that onshore wind in Scotland is roughly the same price as the “gas-linked” price of electricity we are all paying today. Offshore wind is somewhat more, and floating offshore wind is much more expensive.

The next time you hear John Swinney talking about Scotland’s “low-cost” renewables, and demanding the UK government breaks the link between the price of gas and the price of electricity, remember this: the latest generation of Scottish renewables cost the same, or more, than the gas-linked price of electricity we are paying today.

So, how could Scottish independence possibly deliver a third off electricity bills? At this point, Scottish nationalists will usually make one of two arguments.

The first says that because Scotland produces more electricity than it needs, the price in an independent Scotland must surely fall, by the simple law of supply and demand.

But this is not how electricity markets work. Yes: Scotland produces an excess of electricity. But that electricity is relatively expensive electricity. Expensive electricity doesn’t become cheap just because you have an excess of it.

The second argument says that Scottish renewables are only expensive because of the way things are done in the UK. An independent Scotland would do things differently.

But remember: those guaranteed prices, without which wind farms are not constructed, are just enough to ensure developers get their money back, plus a small return on investment.

Would the cost of constructing a wind farm be lower in an independent Scotland? No it would not. The cost of a wind turbine is the cost of a wind turbine. It doesn’t change with independence.

What about the cost of borrowing money for the developer? Well, that might change, but not in a helpful way. It would almost certainly cost more to borrow in an independent Scotland.

The SNP has said it will scrap “unfair” transmission charges paid by generators in Scotland. Won’t this mean lower operating costs if Scotland is independent?

Maybe. But those transmission charges pay for the grid. The grid still needs to be paid for. If generators pay less, someone else has to pay more. And that means ordinary consumers. So this doesn’t work to reduce bills.

Perhaps the small return on investment for the developer could be squeezed lower in an independent Scotland? Good luck with that. The returns are already extremely low. Try to squeeze them lower still, and developers will walk away. Shell has already walked away from its ScotWind projects because they didn’t make financial sense.

And if you are tempted by the idea of the government building wind farms itself, to eliminate the small return to private developers, I have one word for you: ferries. An SNP government is the last organisation you should trust with capital investment projects.

John Swinney’s pledge on energy bills at this election is simply fraudulent. He knows that it won’t be properly scrutinised. And he doesn’t care that it’s undeliverable. But voters should care about a candidate for First Minister who doesn’t tell the truth.

This piece was first published by The Scottish Sun, on 27th April 2026.