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Scottish energy minister says “we must do all we can” to make sure communities benefit
The Scottish Government has warned renewable energy projects around the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland could be at risk, ahead of a meeting today (10 April) with Greg Clark.
Scotland’s energy minister, Paul Wheelhouse, and the BEIS secretary are due to co-chair the fifth meeting of the Scottish Islands Renewable Delivery Forum in Stornoway, which will focus on a recent Whitehall consultation on wind projects around the islands.
Speaking before the meeting, Wheelhouse said “we must do all we can to enable our island communities” to benefit from wind power, which he added could meet up to five per cent of total UK electricity demand.
“The planned projects on the Western and Shetland Isles would face extremely high locational transmission charges to provide electricity to the mainland,” said the minister.
“That is why an appropriate support mechanism is so important to help unlock very significant capital investment from the private sector and community-owned developers, as well as, in turn underpinning the investment case to National Grid for vital island grid connections.
“Bringing this positive scenario about, as quickly as possible, will be at the heart of my discussions with Mr Clark,” added Wheelhouse.
Last week, WWF Scotland published new data, which revealed that wind turbines north of the border had set a new March record for the total amount of power sent to the National Grid since records began.
According to the data, which was provided by WeatherEnergy, wind turbines in Scotland provided 1,240,095MWh of electricity to the National Grid last month.
The previous highest recorded March output figure was in 2015, when 1,006,018MW was sent to the grid
“Given this March wasn’t as windy as it has been in some previous years, this year’s record output shows the importance of continuing increase capacity by building new wind farms,” said WWF Scotland’s director, Lang Banks.
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