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Highlands must benefit from our renewables, says Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire Liberal Democrat MP Angus MacDonald





Large new pylons marching across the country.
Large new pylons marching across the country.

My maiden speech was delivered last week during the GB Energy debate at Westminster. Us Highland and Island MPs universally agree that rural communities should be paid for the massive negative impact of hosting wind and other renewables sources in our backyard.

We depend on the Labour party to get legislation through Westminster to enact this, and Holyrood to change the ‘guidance’ which was given in 2014 at a time when the electricity price was much lower.

I have discussed my proposal with Scottish secretary Ian Murray and energy minister Gillian Martin at Holyrood and have written to them. The Highland Council are onside.

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The Norwegians handled the revenue from the North Sea oil boom well, their Sovereign Wealth Fund is now valued at $1.7 trillion. Britain saved nothing. We are in real danger of repeating that mistake with the renewables bonanza.

I said in my speech that it’d be wonderful if a fairy godmother came along and bestowed a wonderful asset to the Highlands, something that generated serious money over generations for the area, and a long-term provider of great employment. We can have this. The west Highlands is the wettest area in Europe, the wind is virtually unceasing. We have the most fantastic land to benefit from the move to renewables.

This opportunity has not gone unnoticed, utilities and infrastructure firms from all over the world are queueing up to install 200m high wind turbines on our hills, our hydro schemes are getting upgraded and there are five multibillion-pound pump storage sites at various stages of development in my constituency. Major construction projects abound across the Highlands, and thousands of workers are brought in, accommodated in temporary modular housing.

Scottish peak use is 3GW, whereas peak electricity production in Scotland is circa 10-14GW. Scotland may add as much as 10GW of production capacity by 2030. We will be producing seven times more electricity than we use.

However there are two important issues we need to pay attention to, the first is that there is a cost to this for us in the Highlands: the industrialisation of our countryside. What was a beautiful view of the mountains which attracts a million visitors a year is now rows of whirling turbines, and large new pylons marching across the country to the cities where the demand is.

The second issue is: what is in it for the locals? The turbines and generators are manufactured overseas, the developer is usually from outwith the UK and the workers are shipped in. This multibillion-pound renewables industry in Scotland generates comparatively little in community benefits for local communities. In the Highlands we pay 50 per cent more for electricity connection than in the south of England and yet the Highlands is increasingly where this electricity is generated.

Total community benefit across Scotland was estimated last year to be £26.4 million, of which £9.1 million was in the Highlands; it should be a multiple of this.

In the short term, the Scottish Government should change the 2014 community benefit ‘guidance’ for onshore wind farm developers to pay £5000 plus inflationary increases per megawatt to five per cent of gross revenue from all new renewable projects over 1MW.

The next step would be for the new UK government to amend legislation in order to make it a legal requirement for renewable developers to pay a significant sum to impacted communities. It is good that the Great British Energy Bill is supportive of community ownership of renewable projects.

I propose that five per cent of revenue from all newly consented renewable energy generated onshore and offshore projects to be paid to community benefit funds. For onshore projects, two-thirds of this to the affected council ward and a third to a council infrastructure fund. For offshore projects, the five per cent of gross revenue should go to council infrastructure funds. Existing renewable projects over 1MW, should pay two per cent as per the split already outlined.

For transmission lines and substations, the Irish have an excellent community benefit plan that we can learn from.

There is no doubt that the utilities/developers etc will say that this proposal is unaffordable, but if proposed community benefits were legislated then there might be a very small increase in the price of electricity across the UK and cost neutral to utilities and developers.

I closed my address by saying there is a considerable disadvantage for the people of rural Britain taking on the downsides of hosting our move from a carbon-based energy world to a renewable energy alternative. It is only fair that we make this beneficial to the impacted people.

One of GB Energy’s first jobs should be to look at my proposals and to ensure that the benefits of Scotland’s renewables can be properly shared because this is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss.

Angus MacDonald is the Lib Dem MP for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire


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