Scotland leads the world in the development of renewables, Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson has said.

Mr Stevenson was marking World Environment Day, whose theme this year is 'The Green Economy'.

He said the theme "could not be more apt", as Scotland produced a record amount of renewable electricity last year, hitting a third of gross domestic consumption.

Scotland has around a quarter of Europe’s offshore wind and tidal energy resource and a tenth of its wave power potential.

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Scotland aims to deliver the equivalent of at least 100 per cent of gross electricity consumption by 2020, with Scotland remaining a net exporter of power.

Mr Stevenson said: "The low carbon economy offers a huge opportunity for us, creating tens of thousands of jobs and reindustrialising our economy."

He said the renewables industry supported more than 11,000 jobs across Scotland, while plans for offshore wind generators could employ up to 28,000 people by 2020. There would be several thousand more renewables jobs to come out of the emerging wave and tidal industry, he said, as up to 1.6GW of capacity is planned for the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters.

Recent analysis published by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change has shown that low carbon energy policies and measures could lead to an average household energy bill of £1,285 by 2020 – whereas 'business as usual' would result in bills of £1,379.

(NE/GK)