Abstract
Local benefits of community renewable energy (CRE) –ranging from an increase in social cohesion, jobs, services, knowledge and skills - are widely assumed in academia and among policy makers. However, there are both a lack of evidence on these impacts and a lack of formal impact assessment methodologies to assess them. This research explores change mapping, an impact assessment methodology, to contribute to evaluative frameworks for assessment of the effects of CRE projects on their host communities. With this methodology, the local impacts of a 900 kW community wind project on the Scottish island Shapinsay are assessed, using an exploratory survey, interviews, and two focus group sessions. When it comes to the local impacts, the biggest changes residents experience are either direct or indirect effects of the RE revenues. Modest but ostensible effects are visible on local economic development, social cohesion, and knowledge and skill development. From the case study can be concluded that community-ownership of energy technologies can indeed be empowering, but also creates vulnerability. Stable energy policies and support during the operational phase are needed to keep up the stream of RE income that functions as a source of independent income.
Highlights
Local benefits of community renewable energy (CRE) –ranging from an increase in social cohesion, jobs, services, knowledge and skills - are widely assumed in academia and among policy makers
The local impacts of a 900 kW community wind project on the Scottish island Shapinsay are assessed, using an exploratory survey, interviews, and two focus group sessions. When it comes to the local impacts, the biggest changes residents experience are either direct or indirect effects of the RE revenues
This section concludes the paper by discussing the results of the case study, as well as the potential of the change mapping methodology for impact assessment of CRE and policy advocacy
Summary
Scottish community renewable energy (CRE) is booming with a growth from a few scattered projects at the advent of the millennium to almost 70 MW in 2017, representing nearly 1% of Scotland’s onshore renewable energy (RE) production (Local Energy Scotland, 2017; DBEIS, 2017). The 2002 UK Renewables Obliga tion, introducing the Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) and later on the 2010 Feed-in-Tariffs (FiTs), opened a window of op portunity for RE by making it a secure, financially rewarding investment Recognising these subsidy schemes as a chance to expand its com munity empowerment policy, the Scottish Government branched out its empowerment agenda to RE to encourage communities to take up RE projects to generate an independent source of income and create a sig nificant capital injection in their local economies. To contribute to evaluation tools for the local effects of CRE, this research introduces intrchange mapping, an impact assessment meth odology from the field of Social Impact Assessment, into the community energy literature This methodology can be used to make explicit the mental models community members have regarding the changes a CRE project has brought for the community.
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