Scotland Matters, the non-party campaign for Scotland to remain in the United Kingdom has released a report examining the ability of an independent Scotland to maintain a secure supply of power.

Entitled Who put the lights out?, it warns that a Scotland outside of the UK could face huge existential challenges to meet its domestic electricity demands, using 2025 as a baseline.

The reports concludes that, without continued integration with and level of service from the UK National Grid, Scotland could not produce enough conventional energy to meet peak winter demands.

It also claims that a huge infrastructure investment would be required to enable Scottish wind energy to be exported to England, and up to £1 billion of renewable energy subsidy payments would have to be taken on by Scotland.

For a new, independent Scottish state, reaching an agreement on conditions and costs would be a complex and lengthy process.

A spokesperson for Scotland Matters said: “The SNP and Scottish Greens relentlessly boast about how they lead the world on climate change. The reality is they only delivered 21,000 of their 2010 forecast of 130,000 “green” jobs by 2021, failed to deliver their national cheap energy company and have repeatedly missed targets on emissions, wildlife preservations and recycling.

“In their 2014 Scotland’s Future manifesto for independence the issue of electricity supply was brushed off with the following one-sided assumption that ‘single GB-wide market for electricity and gas will continue, with the current market trading arrangements, provided that they meet Scottish requirements for energy security supply.’

“Clearly, it will not be as easy as that and secure energy supply through the National Grid stands alongside unknown currency, a hard border, the scale of the debt and deficit, EU and NATO membership as the great unanswered questions of the independence debate. The list only ever gets bigger.”