Highland Council votes to start work on developing a renewables fund for local investment so the region can benefit from the hugely profitable industry that some councillors fear could leave the north 'meeting zero carbon targets with near zero benefits'
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The Highlands should benefit from the renewable energy industry in the same way Shetland and Norway have benefited from oil and gas, the council leader has said.
Margaret Davidson and head of the council’s Labour group Jimmy Gray tabled a motion at a meeting of Highland Council last week calling for a “fairer share” of the income derived from renewables making use of the region’s resources.
Essentially a tax on energy firms the vision is for a fund that could be invested locally to benefit communities where lives are directly impacted by accommodating the likes of wind power and hydro electricity schemes.
Citing fuel poverty numbers and prices for energy in the Highlands that are so much higher than elsewhere in the country Councillor Gray said it was only right that Highlanders themselves should benefit more directly from the industry that was all around them.
The way had already been paved, he said, by Shetland Islands Council which recently cut a deal with Scottish and Southern Energy so the community there can derive direct benefit from a local wind farm.
“Unfortunately when it comes to onshore and offshore renewables the Highland area has, almost uniquely, not seen anywhere near the benefits in financial or employment terms that would be reasonable to expect from such hugely profitable developments in our area,” he said.
“Ten per cent of Europe’s wave hours are here and up to 25 per cent of the tidal resource is here. Scotland is also home to 25 per cent of the whole of Europe’s offshore wind resource.
“Scottish and Southern Energy’s transmission and the most recent energy trend reports says that the north of Scotland holds the greatest renewable resource in Great Britain.
“We have also seen plans come forward for the development of some of the largest hydro pump storage facilities in the UK – combined expenditure for these projects is multi-billion.
“Unless we make a fundamental change in how these developments take place here the Highlands will miss out on what we should rightly expect from the development of these natural resources.
“We will be meeting zero carbon targets with near zero benefits to our region.”
Cllr Davidson said: “This is about retaining more of the money that’s made from our natural resources here in Highland. I hope today is the first time we start talking about a Highland renewable fund – not just a Shetland oil fund, a Norway oil fund – because I am very, very aware of the money that whizzes past my head every time yet another wind farm is built.”
