Energy / ‘Insulting to our community’ – Armitage criticises community benefit proposals
A PROPOSAL to increase the community benefit that areas receive for hosting onshore wind projects by £1,000 per installed megawatt has been labelled “laughable”.
The Green Party’s candidate for the Shetland seat at May’s Scottish elections has said that Shetland Greens reject the model of corporate ownership of wind turbines here.
Alex Armitage made the remarks in response to news that the Scottish Government is proposing a 20 per cent increase in voluntary community benefit payments.
The government is proposing to increase community benefit for onshore wind projects from the current £5,000 per installed megawatt to £6,000 per year. The payments, however, will continue to be voluntary – with no statutory requirement.
Alex Armitage has said the proposals would be “laughable” if they were not “so insulting to our community”.
“It is not right for any more wind farms to be built in Shetland, unless they are 100 per cent owned by local communities,” Armitage told Shetland News.
“We must learn the lessons of the Viking Wind Farm; the energy transition is currently being treated as yet another opportunity for profit extraction by large corporations whilst communities get shut out.
“Wind turbines could be seen as symbols of liberation for rural and island communities such as ours, instead, they have become symbols of corporate enclosure.”
Shetland Greens is opposed to the proposed Statkraft projects at Mossy Hill, Energy Isles and Beaw Field, he said.
And he added that they believed there was “still the opportunity for ownership of the Neshion project to be transferred to a community owned company.”
Statkraft is proposing to build windfarms at Energy Isles, Beaw Fields and Mossy Hill, while Shetland Aerogenerators is planning to build the Neshion energy park with eight turbines near Sullom Voe oil terminal.
Armitage said there was only “one big success story with onshore wind in Shetland”, which was the Garth windfarm – wholly owned by the local community – in North Yell.
The Green election candidate said that projects like this “could be replicated across Shetland”.
But he claimed the UK Government’s declaration that any new onshore windfarm projects needed to go through a transmission impact statement would make any community-owned windfarms “unviable”.
“I find it galling that the UK government is shutting the door to new windfarms owned by local communities, yet huge corporations have the go-ahead to build large schemes which extract profits from Shetland,” he said.
“A new interconnector cable is being constructed in the next decade and it’s vital that our community mobilises to prevent any more extractive wind farms.
“Capacity on the new interconnector must not be handed over to corporations and must be reserved for community owned projects.”
Armitage said Shetland Greens reject the notion of community benefit from corporate-owned windfarms.
“As one of my wise colleagues in council remarked, ‘they were offering us peanuts – now they’re offering us cashews’,” Armitage said.
The Liberal Democrats also called the proposed increase in community benefit “deeply underwhelming”.
Liberal Democrat election candidate Emma Macdonald said Shetland “punches above its weight” in its energy contribution, and “should be appropriately compensated for living with it”.
Communities and local authorities in the areas affected by large scale wind energy project have lobbied for at least £7,500 per MW per year as a legally required amount.
The Liberal Democrats and others have previously floated community benefit levels of £12,000 per MW per year.
The Shetland Community Benefit Fund receives more than £2.2 million a year from the 103-turbine Viking wind farm, based on £5,000 per MW per year.
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