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Highlands & Islands

Project focus

The Energy Saving Trust will lead the Scottish pilot which aims to evolve the support for community energy to move from a focus on electricity generation supported by subsidies to a more whole system approach where communities’ energy generation, energy efficiency, heat, storage and future usage needs are considered together.

The pilot will develop energy plans for 4 local areas in the Highland and Islands facing different local energy challenges. The plans will bring together the best data on energy supply and use to develop a coordinated area based approach and enable communities to have their voices heard in the processes by which energy projects are planned within their local areas.

Select recommendations from the energy plans will be implemented with the lessons learned being used to develop a common process and methodology for how local energy planning should be carried out at the sub local authority level.

In addition to communities this project will be developed in close cooperation with key national and regional planning/energy policy officials throughout including the district network operator, transport officials and representatives from Scotland’s energy efficiency programme.

Additional resources such as local energy planning templates, business models and IT toolkits will be produced by The Energy Saving Trust to ensure the necessary infrastructure is in place to facilitate the normalization of the local energy planning approach across the Highland and Islands region

 

Civic benefits

4 communities in the Highlands and Islands region of Scotland will benefit directly from this pilot. The impact of the local energy plans will be measured in terms of economic, social, direct, indirect and strategic benefits.

The pilot is one of a number of approaches that supports the Scottish Government’s commitment to develop strategic approaches based on locally distinctive needs, opportunity and priorities.

Contact

Ross Jones
Local Energy Scotland
Ocean Point 1
94 Ocean Drive
Edinburgh
EH6 6JH

E-Mail: ross.jones@localenergy.scot

Direct Dial +44 (0) 7714 708415

www.localenergyscotland.org/