Community benefit needs to be renewables priority

​The Labour MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Torcuil Crichton, has been joined by the new Liberal Democrat MP for Inverness, Skye and Wester Ross in making specific proposals about the form these obligations should take and the urgent need for legislation.

Mr Crichton has called for compulsory community shares in all new windfarm developments and for the regulator to guarantee access for community-owned turbines on the national grid.

Speaking at the agm of the Western Isles Labour Party at the weekend, Mr Crichton welcomed the government’s GB Energy Bill and called on Ministers to go further in meeting community demand.

He said: “The Western Isles are at the epicentre of community-owned windfarms in the UK bringing in millions of pounds each year to their areas. What these community schemes need, for renewal, for expansion, is funding, yes, but primarily access to the grid.

“For us in the Western Isles that means reserving space, by regulation or legislation, on the planned interconnector to the mainland.”

This 1.8GW subsea cable planned for 2030 will take power from both consented commercial onshore windfarms and potentially from offshore wind turbines to the west.

The National Grid is currently consulting on a new approach to grid access which would enable it to progress certain projects over others in the grid queue to meet the government’s strategic priorities.

Mr Crichton said: “As one of these new priorities is to increase the size of the community sector it should be stated in the new guidance that National Grid are authorised to advance community projects to meet the government’s community energy target. This change is the single most important reform to be delivered in terms of scaling up community energy and would add no cost or administrative burden to any of the regulatory agencies or to the consumer.”

Mr Crichton warned that if community owned projects are overlooked in favour of commercial operations, then Ministers would “alienate the very people on the ground who support the renewables revolution.”

He also called for government to require developers to offer “credible share ownership to communities” pointing out that in Denmark it has been a long-standing requirement that developers offer 20% of any new project to the local community.

Mr Crichton said: “Wind farming, onshore and offshore, is going to be a multi-billion pound industry and an extremely profitable one. Communities which host these turbines must see their share of the gain.”

Similar issues were raised by Mr Macdonald in the course of his Maiden Speech during a debate on the GB Energy Bill when he asked what local communities are going to get out of the renewable energy boom.

Mr Macdonald told MPs: “The turbines and generators are manufactured overseas, the developer and utilities firms are from outwith the UK and the workers are shipped in. Last year, our total community benefit from that multi-billion-pound industry was an estimated £9.1 million in the Highlands, and £26.4 million across Scotland as a whole. It should be a multiple of those figures”.

He continued: “I propose that 5% of revenue from all newly consented renewable energy projects, both onshore and offshore, should be paid to community benefit funds. For onshore, two thirds of should be paid to the affected council ward, with one third paid to a council infrastructure fund; for offshore, all of that 5% of gross revenue should go to council infrastructure funds.

“For transmission lines and substations, the Irish have an excellent community benefit plan that we can learn from. The Norwegians handled the revenue from the North Sea oil boom well, and their sovereign wealth fund is now valued at $1.7 trillion. Britain saved nothing, and we are in real danger of repeating that mistake with renewables”.