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It will come from a range of sources.

Local authorities will produce their LHEES and provide them to Government. I think that they are all to be provided to the committee as well. They will be made public.

Those are the existing targets under the act. The 2035 target is for what happens beyond that.

As we set out in the consultation, the three proposed targets were based on not only the information from the first assessment report, which looked at where heat network zones will be, but a range of scenarios about the viability of heat networks—a high or low scenario might mean more or fewer heat networks respectively in those areas that have been found to be suitable—and assumptions about a connection rate of 50 per cent.

As we go forward, we will have to address some of the issues around demand assurance so that those developing and investing in heat networks have confidence that there will be consumers connecting to them. However, we made that connection rate assumption for the short period ahead, before the demand assurance measures are in place.

Therefore, from those three factors, we derived proposals for targets of 6TWh and 7TWh and the other stretch target of 12.5TWh. Although a case can be made for any of those targets, it was felt pretty clearly that the target of 7TWh was stretching in terms of achieving significant growth in the sector but also achievable.

It will depend on the specific settings in each area. That is why LHEES are being taken forward at the local level.

If the committee has not had the chance to learn about the heat network in Shetland, for example, I think that that would be instructive. It has been in operation for 25 years, and the company is now looking to expand and extend it, including to potential customers who are not right in the town centre.

There are some energy losses that come from extensive heat networks, but the experience of Denmark is that you can have them over a very wide area, and they do not just have value in the inner core of a city, so we would like to ensure that as many parts of Scotland as can benefit from heat networks do so.

Of course, in less densely populated areas, other approaches to decarbonisation—including individual heat pumps and other technologies—will be, and already are, extremely successful.

That question is probably best directed at colleagues who work on the waste side. There are many reasons why there is an environmental desire to move away from burning our waste—to put it simply—even with modern technology. As Monica Lennon’s question hinted at, it requires a continual feed of waste material going in, and it is not consistent with a circular economy approach.

The approach with regard to heat networks is that, where an existing facility has waste heat that is going into the air and is not benefiting anyone, we might as well plug that into a heat network and get some value and use out of it.

Well, the proposals that we are about to consult on on heat in buildings set out how the heat standard will work, and they recognise that fossil fuel systems for emergency back-up might continue to be necessary. It is probably more likely that those would be portable systems, rather than an installed gas boiler.

We have an opportunity to ensure that the vast majority of the heat that is consumed comes from sustainable sources and is non-polluting. We also have an opportunity to ensure that we achieve that in a way that is consistent with affordability, tackling fuel poverty and other objectives.

The act set the initial targets. The new target that we are setting is for 2035. We do not have annual targets in between those.

Sorry, it is—

Yes. We have been exploring a range of models of operation. That might involve direct municipal ownership; it might involve joint ventures between local authorities and other partners. The opportunity exists not only to ensure that heat decarbonisation is achievable for people—that householders and businesses feel that a service is available to them and that it will provide them with long-term certainty about the consumer protection that is being built in and about low-carbon and affordable heat—but that they trust that it is being operated to a large extent in the public interest.

As Mark Ruskell knows, Denmark has generously shared its experience and expertise on heat networks and it has been advising us for a number of years on the development and implementation of the 2021 act. Denmark has been developing heat networks for 50 years and it is still rolling them out, because there is high demand for them in the third or so of the country that does not have access to them yet. People want to be connected to them, because they know that they are an affordable way to meet their heating needs, and that is the case more than ever given the cost of living crisis.

Denmark knows that the public have a high degree of trust in the operation of such systems in the public interest. If we can emulate that in as much of Scotland as possible, we will not only achieve decarbonisation and do it affordably, but—we hope—achieve the high degree of public trust that our neighbours in Denmark have achieved.