South of Scotland Enterprise have launched a public consultation on proposals to create a South of Scotland Standard for Community Benefits from onshore wind.

The draft South of Scotland Standard includes nine key principles:

• High-quality community engagement from first point of contact
• A standardised minimum payment of £5000 per installed MW per year (index-linked)
• Transparency and accountability
• Local flexibility in how funds are used
• Investing in community capacity
• Contractual security for agreements
• Tackling barriers to shared ownership
• Retrospectivity for older agreements
• A voluntary charter mark for developers

PCC comment

PCC recently supported the Scottish Coalition on Community Energy call for higher community benefits from clean energy.

"We recommend that clean power developments contribute 5% of gross revenue to communities, through local community benefit funds plus contributions to a Scottish Community Wealth Fund. The local community benefit payments should be reinforced by a minimum floor level. For onshore wind the floor should be £7.5k/MW, which is the level that the current benchmark of £5,000/MW would be at if it had increased in line with inflation since it was set in 2010."

(see News 13 Mar 2025)

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