The news yesterday that rocketing gas prices threaten to force families into paying £1000 a year for heating and electricity will doubtless help to focus the minds of ordinary Scots on how to find cheaper energy sources.

They are not alone. The combination of sky-high costs, the need to combat global warming and growing concerns that fossil fuels are running out have been a serious issue for the SNP since it took power last year.

Although Scotland's oil is still an asset the SNP is desperate to make the most of, it also recognises the ever-more urgent need to find alternative ways of producing power.

The party is optimistic that Scotland's natural resources can make the nation a world leader in renewable energy sources such as wave and tidal power. It has already taken the first step towards turning that belief into reality by setting out its intentions through published targets.

By 2011, 31% of the country's electricity must be produced through renewable sources, while by 2050 half of the nation's electricity must be green. Yesterday, First Minister Alex Salmond announced the next major step towards achieving those goals: the creation of the UK's largest biomass plant in Fife. He was brimming with confidence about the party's ability to ensure deadlines would not only be met, but exceeded.

However, although more announcements of similar projects are expected to follow, it is still early days. The problem of making sure Scotland has cheap power at no great cost to the environment is not that simple, as the recent rejection of the giant Lewis wind farm demonstrated.

The biomass plant at Markinch outside Glenrothes has not been an easy scheme to launch. Bosses at Tullis Russell papermill, which the plant will fuel, first proposed the idea several years ago but hit "myriad" problems relating to regulations.

Yesterday, those issues appeared to have been resolved with Npower agreeing to fund most of the £100m-plus cost, helped by just over £8m from the Scottish Government.

If all goes to plan, the plant will be operational in 2011 - when the first target is due to be met. As the name suggests, it uses biological material as fuel, in this case "recovered" wood such as old wardrobes and doors which would otherwise lie wasted in landfill sites, and "virgin" wood direct from trees.

Power is created by burning the wood while the heat generated in the process will also be put to use, for example in industrial processes at the mill. As a result, the plant is expected to be greener and more efficient than its coal-fired replacement.

Only time will tell whether it lives up to expectations that it will produce around 6% of Scotland's renewables targets. Even if it does, that leaves a sizeable amount of green energy to be found.

Across the country, varying degrees of progress are being made with the other alternatives.