All new wind farm developments should be community-owned, a Scottish Parliament committee heard this week.
The discussion came days after an online ‘exhibition’ opened for the Giants Burn wind farm above Loch Long, with an event also held in Cove on Thursday.
The plan has been revised and now featured seven turbines rather than nine, with one up to 180 metres tall and the others 200 metres.
The revised plan has not been made available online, but the previous version would have looked like this:
In a consultation by developers Statkraft last year 55% of people said the site near Sandbank was not acceptable, with 32% agreeing and 13% unsure.
Air traffic control organisation NATS objected to the proposal, while NatureScot has said the site is unsuitable for wind farms and that it is ‘very likely’ that it would object to turbines of any scale in that location.
Giants Burn is one of two new wind farm plans on the Cowal Peninsula – the Inverchaolain Wind Farm would see up to 13 large turbines built near Toward, with most or all of them visible from parts of the Rosneath Peninsula and Helensburgh.
Meanwhile on Wednesday the Scottish Parliament’s citizen participation and petitions committee discussed a petition by Karen Murphy of Kintyre to make offering community shared ownership mandatory for all new wind farm developments.
The petition was supported by East Kintyre Renewable Energy Group (EKREG), a volunteer organisation aiming to highlight and secure socio-economic opportunities for communities from shared ownership.
It calls for a new statutory right for impacted communities to be offered a share in renewable energy developments
They want to see a “coherent political response” which enables communities to own 15% of new wind farms.
In Denmark, 67% of onshore wind is co-owned by citizens through shared ownership, while German communities benefit from owning 50% of onshore wind.
In Scotland, only 0.2% of onshore wind is co-owned by communities, despite the Scottish Government having set an ambition in 2017 that “by 2020, at least half of newly consented renewable energy projects will have an element of shared ownership.”
The ‘Share the Wind’ petition has been under consideration for over three years and this week’s meeting was the eighth time it had been discussed in the Scottish Parliament.
The Scottish Government has stated that the power to mandate shared ownership rests with the UK Government.
Holyrood has urged the UK Government to “explore mandating” shared ownership.
The Scottish Community Coalition on Energy has suggested that even without Westminster’s backing, the Scottish Government could use planning powers or place conditions on public land leases to incentivise renewables developers to secure community buy-in through co-ownership.
Morven Lyon from Scottish Community Coalition on Energy said: “Community shared ownership of renewables is essential to a just transition, as it empowers communities by providing them with greater control, enhancing financial resilience and promoting sustainability.
“By sharing the wealth generated from renewables, it aligns with Scotland’s community wealth building approach to strengthen local economies.
“However, shared ownership rates are still shockingly low compared to Europe. Developers must engage proactively to ensure local participation and benefit, and communities need much more support to take advantage.”
Karen Murphy said: “The Scottish Government has admitted to the petitions committee that it has the powers under planning legislation, the Scotland Act and the Land Registration Act of 2012 to implement laws which would effectively make community shared ownership mandatory, but whenever it is pushed for details on implementing them it simply states that energy is a reserved matter for the UK Government, so it is wonderful to see the Scottish Community Coalition on Energy taking up this cause for a Just Transition.”
A spokesperson for EKREG said: “We have spent the last six years discussing shared ownership with the many businesses planning windfarm developments in the area and have yet to receive a meaningful offer.
“The Scottish Government’s guidance is simply not robust enough to convince developers to make worthwhile offers to communities.
“This is most frustrating when the Scottish Government already has the powers to effectively make shared ownership mandatory, but refuses to do so.”
