Community Power Outer Hebrides (CPOH), a consortium of community-owned generators operating in the Outer Hebrides, has written to all wind developers with projects in the Outer Hebrides to ask them to commit to offering the opportunity to local communities to purchase at least 20% of all proposed development in Lewis.
Our six members currently operate 21.3MW of renewable capacity and we reinvest approximately £3 million of profit annually into our local communities. As highlighted in Great British Energy’s Local Energy Plan Community Power Outer Hebrides, “a consortium of six community generators that own and operate wind turbines, totaling 22MW, have kept the benefits locally and, between them, have returned £20m to local communities in the Outer Hebrides over the past decade”. These projects have been transformative socially, economically and environmentally, and demonstrate the power of community-owned energy.
The letter has gone to BayWa r.e., the developers of the Druim Leathann windfarm near Tolsta; Magnora Offshore Wind, who secured a site 35 miles north of the Butt of Lewis; RWE Renewables, who are behind the Uisenis windfarm in Lochs; and Northland Power, the main developer of the Spiorad na Mara project.
We are asking these four and all other developers to bring the Outer Hebrides communities to the table and offer the opportunity to purchase at least 20% of all proposed development in Lewis. Community energy groups in the Outer Hebrides have proven that they have the skills, expertise and experience to undertake renewable energy projects re-distributing the wealth created.
Shared Ownership is central to the Local Power Plan recently published by Great British Energy. The Plan sets out an intention that every developer should offer Shared Ownership as standard. This is backed with a £1 billion finance package to deliver and support on the Local Power Plan.
