Peterhead gas approval is ‘catastrophic failure’ to protect Scottish citizens

Climate campaigners have slammed the decision by Scottish Government Ministers today to approve a huge new fossil gas burning power station at Peterhead, labelling it a “catastrophic failure” to protect people in Scotland.   

Ministers have given the go ahead to fossil fuel companies SSE and Equinor to build a new gas burning power station with carbon capture plant at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. The plant could burn gas until 2059, 14 years past Scotland’s net-zero target date. 

The plant will lock Scottish households and businesses into dependence on volatile fossil fuels for the next 30 years, as the price of electricity from the gas plant will also be influenced by global gas prices and geopolitical events as we have seen with the wars in Iran and Ukraine.  

No working carbon capture power station

The Scottish Government claims the new power station will have carbon capture, however there is no working carbon capture transport and storage network in Scotland. The lead carbon capture developer Storegga announced it was pulling out of the Acorn project in December 2025 and there has not been a replacement stakeholder announced. 

SSE were forced to admit in 2025 that the project will be responsible for over three times the climate pollution the company claimed in its initial planning application. The climate emissions from extracting and transporting the gas to Peterhead will not be covered by the proposed carbon capture system.  

The current power station at Peterhead has been amongst the worst polluters in Scotland for many years, and SSE announced it would remain open until 2040 – meaning the two plants could run at the same time. 

Project is mired in controversy

Plans for the new power station have been mired in controversy, with research revealing the climate impact of the plant could be five times higher than developers admitted and Scottish Government Ministers have been accused of breaches of the ministerial code over their mishandling of the planning application. Over 13,000 people and scores of civil society organisations called on the Scottish Government to reject the planning application. 
 
Friends of the Earth Scotland’s head of campaigns Caroline Rance said, 

“Giving the green light for new fossil fuelled power at Peterhead is a catastrophic failure from the Scottish Government to protect people from both climate breakdown and the increasing burden of rocketing household bills.  

“It beggars belief that Ministers would lock in decades more fossil fuel burning now after people suffered through a summer of extreme heat and are now enduring supercharged storms. 
 
“The pain from today’s terrible decision will be felt by Scottish households for the next 30 years or more because it traps people in relying on volatile fossil gas where the prices are set internationally. Renewable energy is more affordable, reliable and can deliver greater benefits across communities.    
 
“Carbon capture is little more than cynical greenwash from a fossil fuel industry whose business model is producing ever more extreme weather impacts and obscene profits for wealthy shareholders. The relentless lobbying by SSE and Equinor has paid off and Scottish households, workers and communities will all be the worse for it.  

“Successive Scottish Governments and fossil fuel companies have been promising for over twenty years that carbon capture is always just around the corner, but it has never materialised. Carbon capture has failed around the world and the public will inevitably pay the price.” 
ENDS