Community benefits

Community benefits are voluntary packages of benefits (often in the form of funds) that renewable energy businesses provide to support communities and offer an opportunity for communities to work with renewable energy businesses for the long-term benefit of the community.

In the Scottish Energy Strategy, its vision for the future energy system in Scotland, the Scottish Government sets the expectation that energy developers should continue to offer meaningful community benefits in line with its Good Practice Principles.

These principles recommend that community benefit packages for onshore wind developments should have a value to the equivalent of at least £5,000 per installed megawatt per annum and be index-linked for the operational lifetime of the project. In addition, they also suggest that other onshore technologies should aspire to this level.

CARES supports communities who have been approached by commercial developers regarding community benefits packages. CARES can help with discussions to ensure that the best deal is reached for both parties. We also support Community Action Planning activity.

Support we can provide to help communities to make the most of community benefits includes:

• A Community Benefits Toolkit to guide groups through the process from initial contact with a project developer through to monitoring and review. It includes a number of useful tools, for example a document template to help you draw up your own Community Benefits agreement and a community benefit Memorandum of Understanding guidance and template.
• Community Action Plans, produced by communities who have been supported by us.
• Community benefits for net zero – this guide explores the benefits of funding net zero projects from community benefit income.

Subject to funding availability, communities can access support from CARES to develop a Community Action Plans where there are, or will be, community benefit funds delivered in the locality. You can visit our guidance page to learn more.

To ensure available funding is directed to communities with the greatest need and to demonstrate additionality, Local Energy Scotland will require you to demonstrate:

• That you have been unable to secure funding from the renewable energy developer to develop a Community Action Plan
• You don’t have existing community benefit funding or other unrestricted/unallocated funds that could be used to complete a Community Action Plan.
• You have considered options to work with neighbouring communities to complete your plan (or build on existing plans).

If you think you are eligible, please start your application here. If you have not been in receipt of CARES funding before, please click the ‘Begin a new project’ button. If your organisation has received CARES funding in the past, we are setting up a CARES project portal account on your behalf. We will contact you shortly with details of how to access your new account and how to apply for additional funding including for any new CARES eligible project you wish to progress.

Please note that all CARES funded projects must be able to fully complete and draw down all funds by 28 February 2025.

The Scottish Government has published its good practice principles for community benefits for onshore renewable energy developments for communities, businesses, local authorities and others. Visit the Scottish Government website for more information.

The good practice principles for community benefits from offshore renewable energy developments remains under consultation. A revision will be published in due course.

The Community Benefits Register showcases community benefits provision across Scotland. The register contains a searchable map. It allows developers and communities to upload community benefit details attached to these projects. Only community benefit schemes from operational projects are added – ideally following provision of the first installation of community benefit.

We’ve put together some helpful webinars on community benefits.

• A webinar about the Community Benefits Toolkit, explaining how to use it and presenting case studies from across Scotland
• A webinar about community benefits and getting the governance right that looks in detail at the module of the toolkit of the same name
• A webinar about turning community benefits into net zero action. Find out how community benefits are helping communities to go greener.