Three islands, one energy revolution
Community energy, where people produce their own electricity, has gone from being an environmentalist buzzword to a reality, with huge potential for isolated rural communities
By Sam Richardson
On October 15th, 1999 the Danish island of Samsø suffered a tragedy. The island’s slaughterhouse, its main employer, was shut down, plunging over 80 people on this windswept and remote community into unemployment. Many ‘Samsings’ left the island, never to return. It was an experience all too familiar to remote rural communities worldwide, many of whom are dependent on the whims of distant employers and institutions.
But the “big depression”, as Søren Hermansen described it to me, was also a big opportunity. Hermansen, a plain-speaking local resident named by Time magazine as a ‘hero of the environment’ in 2008, helped lead the island through a remarkable transformation, driven by renewable energy. Harnessing the cold winds which rage throughout the year, Samsø now generates so much electricity it sells some back to the mainland. Denmark’s ‘Renewable Energy Island’ has been visited by government ministers from Egypt to Fiji, and intends to ditch fossil fuels entirely by 2030.
Samsø is not simply another environmental success story, because this success was not built on technology, but by engaging local people. “Samsø’s local government signed up – and they didn’t know what they were doing”, chuckles Hermansen. “We discovered that technology was not the main problem. Nor was finance. But how do you convince people that this is a good idea? Communication is where we’ve probably learnt the most.” Passionate environmental arguments didn’t go very far in this deeply conservative farming community. Instead Hermansen asked a much simpler question: “is this important for us?”
Financially, yes. Samsø’s inhabitants own the wind turbines themselves, hence the term ‘community energy’. The money this brings, and the jobs created, have been a much-needed addition after the loss of the slaughterhouse. But the project has also helped the community recover its dignity and independence; Hermansen has rejected offers from the likes of Shell, the energy company, because he doesn't want to compromise local control. For him, the energy business “smells like profit and corruption. And people hate that. They know at the end of the day they will pay for it, and they haven’t even been asked if this is a good idea.”
Lewis and Harris: pioneering community energy in the UK
UK communities may not have heard of Samsø or Hermansen, but many will certainly share his opinion. Renewable energy is very much a part of the problem for rural areas, as huge corporations tear apart the natural landscape to plant imposing wind turbines. Or at least that’s the way it’s portrayed across national newspapers, who have seized upon an opportunity to criticise big business and central government at the same time. From tabloids (‘Wind Farm Mania’ proclaimed one headline in the Daily Express) to quality newspapers, who feature prominent anti-wind farm campaigners like James Delingpole, criticism has got to the point where the Conservative party may propose a ban on new onshore wind farms after next year’s elections. Replies by metropolitan environmentalists have done little to convince hard-pressed rural communities.
Lewis and Harris, an island in the Scottish Hebrides, sums up the situation perfectly. Located three hours by ferry from the mainland, and a 15 hour drive from London, its 20.000 souls face stronger winds, more isolation and greater poverty than Samsø’s farmers. Here “the issue is very much land,” according to Steven Watson of Community Energy Scotland, a charity which supports community energy projects. “Much of the Highlands and Islands are still owned and controlled by landowners outside the (region). Vast sporting estates, companies, people from Switzerland and everywhere else and a history for more than 100 years of local people not having a say in the land.” Renewable energy has also fallen into this unfortunate narrative.
Ten years ago, a proposal to build the world’s largest onshore wind farm left the islanders bitterly divided. More than 200 turbines would have produced as much power as two nuclear power stations, but would also destroy the island’s environmentally important peat lands, which eventually led to the project being rejected by the Scottish Government in 2008. In the outrage which preceded the decision, the island’s then-MP, Calum MacDonald, lost his seat in the 2005 elections. Joining a group of local residents, the Point and Sandwick Development Trust (PSDT), he embarked on a seemingly ill-fated plan; they would build another large wind farm – but this one entirely owned by the local community.
When the PSDT wind farm is completed, it will generate nine MW, creating a profit of one million pounds every year for 25 years. All profits will go straight into the community, MacDonald proudly informs me. “I realised that wind farms are ideal structures for communities to develop and operate. The technology can be purchased off-the-peg, all the costs of developing and operating a wind farm are known from day one, and your income can be pretty safely predicted for a number of years as well. As a business model, it is one that leads itself to be run by a community set-up.” PSDT will fund the local Bethesda Hospice and a training scheme for islanders with special needs, among other initiatives, and is a registered charity.
PSDT’s wind farm will be the biggest community-owned wind farm in the UK, but it is not alone on the island. The Stornoway Wind Farm Project is a commercial venture by developers AMEC and EDF Energy. Hugely reduced from the earlier scheme, it will number 36 turbines, and has gained approval from the Scottish Government. It illustrates a problem pointed out by Community Energy Scotland; that developers have access to capital and land not open to communities. Although planning for PSDT’s scheme started years earlier, it is still struggling to get financed, with construction planned for later this summer, an entire decade after being proposed.
Why community energy is “no longer a policy footnote”
Lewis and Harris is not the UK’s Samsø – other communities pioneered the idea – but it does illustrate the gulf between the two countries when it comes to community energy. Denmark has a tradition of cooperative movements and, since the 1973 oil crisis, near-universal political support for renewable energy; the UK has neither. And whilst the EU promotes community energy through affiliated organisations like REScoop, local and national conditions matter most. The biggest obstacle, MacDonald explained, is equity; “it’s one thing to persuade a bank to lend to you on commercial terms... (but) before you can do that you need equity funding to cover development costs and the other 20 percent of the construction costs.” Funding can be hard to find, extremely expensive, and investors often demand control over projects.
To confront the challenges of organising communities, providing funding, and cutting so-called regulatory ‘red-tape’, the UK government published a number of proposals in its January 2014 Community Energy Strategy. "We're at a turning point in developing true community energy in the UK,” declared Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey, “for too long community energy has been a policy footnote." An ‘information resource’ will be set up for interested communities, with grant funding for their start-up costs. To make more funding available, the Green Investment Bank will consider providing equity for onshore community wind farms, from which it is currently barred. Finally, regulations would be eased, allowing larger community projects to benefit from vital subsidised tariffs and allowing local councils to generate and sell their own electricity.
Community Energy Scotland and MacDonald caution against overestimating what the latter terms ‘lip-service’; “If you’ve got projects like ours taking nine or 10 years to get to completion, there’s something seriously wrong.” Community energy projects can still only be subsidised during building or operation, but not both, for instance. And Steven Watson from Community Energy Scotland reminds me that inexperienced local groups in remote areas can struggle to deal with the National (electricity) Grid, a commercially-run multinational company. Instead, he believes communities should avoid the grid altogether; the future is “local generation for local use.”
The Community Energy Strategy drew on a report which suggested community projects generated 12 times more value for locals than commercial ventures. This has put pressure on commercial developers to justify their role. I talked to DONG Energy, a Danish energy company and an early pioneer of wind energy, who are currently expanding a wind farm on Burbo Bank, near Liverpool. There they are offering a ‘community benefit fund’ of up to 250.000 pounds to locals, should the project go ahead. In their view “consultation and engagement activities undertaken by DONG Energy are guided by clear principles of honesty and transparency and engaging with communities as early as possible.”
Promisingly, communities are increasingly being offered shares in local renewable energy projects, a legal requirement in Denmark. MacDonald had championed co-ownership on Lewis and Harris for the huge 2004 scheme and been largely ignored, so the recent decision of the Stornoway Wind Project to offer locals the chance to buy a 20 percent share is certainly an encouraging step. Perhaps this could go further: MacDonald feels a figure of 50 percent would be more suitable, as is the case for the planned Viking Energy wind farm on the Shetland Isles. The UK government’s Infrastructure Bill, currently moving through Parliament, would give communities the right to co-ownership.
A Spanish miracle, and the future of community energy
A third windblown island, far away from Lewis and Harris and substantially warmer, offers an exciting glimpse into the future. On June 27th El Hierro, the smallest of Spain’s Canary Islands, will become the first island on the planet to be entirely renewable-energy self-sufficient. Wind-farms will lift water up to the crater of an inactive volcano; when the wind dies this water will be released to generate electricity. Whilst offering hope to ‘local use’ advocates, El Hierro also demonstrates the success of the co-ownership model; the 82 million euro project is shared between the local authority, the Endesa energy company, and the local ITC technological institute. Of course Spain is also an example of what can go wrong; having led the world in wind energy production up to 2013, the eurozone crisis forced the government to slash subsidies, threatening the entire renewable energy industry.
El Hierro is an exotic, glimmering prospect of what community energy could be. Yet a return to Samsø’s lonely shores reminds us what it is now. Søren Hermansen today occupies a large and futuristic building, the Energy Academy, and continues to direct the island’s environmental efforts, traversing winding country roads in his rattling electric car. The island seems to the visitor’s eye relatively unchanged, which is perhaps the entire point of the community-driven model. Renewable energy has not solved all of the island’s problems; youngsters continue to go to the mainland in search of jobs, of which the Energy Academy only provides 30. Nevertheless, islanders continue to support Hermansen in his environmental mission. Involving the community is still paramount, he explains: “it’s quite simple actually: if you’re not invited, then the neighbours’ parties are very noisy, if you’re invited then it is ok.”
Organisation, finance and regulation; slowly conditions are changing in the UK and Denmark to make the dreams of pioneers like Søren Hermansen and Calum MacDonald a reality. Increasingly, rural communities are, often for the first time, able to control their own destinies through generating their own energy, and spending the proceeds on local needs. Of course their experiences demonstrate there is no set route to success; communities need to draw on their unique characteristics, and this also means utilising other renewable energy sources like solar and tidal energy as they develop. Most of all, this is a social and not an environmental revolution. As MacDonald concluded “I think of myself as a community activist and campaigner first and foremost. It just so happens that the project I see as delivering community benefits also has wider environmental benefits as well.”
Did you know:
By 2020 community energy could power 1 million homes in the UK
More than 5000 community energy groups have been active in the UK since 2008
UK community energy capacity has increased 14-fold since 2003
(Department of Energy and Climate Change)
