Projects

Our search tools source information from the Register of Community Benefits and Shared Ownership (the Register), which is updated by project owners who submit annual reports. It provides details of community benefits pledged across Scotland. Annual reports capture the details of how funds are spent. They also show examples of projects and themes to demonstrate how the funds support local priorities.

The Register also captures shared ownership details and opportunities. Annual reports for these projects share any updates on the shared ownership relationship and the annual shared ownership payments from the project.

For more information, visit our webpages on community benefits and shared ownership.

Projects included in the Register include those added from the UK Government’s Renewable Energy Planning Database and those we’re made aware of directly.

The projects shown are intended as a guide to installations in Scotland and shouldn’t be seen as an exhaustive list of all projects. If you want to see a renewable energy development added to the map, please email us.

The information included in the Register is volunteered by renewable energy developers, project owners and fund administrators and is only as accurate and up to date as the information provided. For that reason, the Register should be regarded as a guide only.

As data is provided voluntarily, we don’t hold data for every renewable energy development. As such the data provided doesn’t give the full picture of committed and spent funds across Scotland.

Any disputes regarding community benefit should be dealt with directly between the relevant parties.

Community benefits relating to transmission network funds are recorded as projects, where information has been provided, but don’t contribute to the average and total figures calculated.

Average community value from recent projects

This is the average value of community benefits per installed megawatt (MW) committed from projects commissioned in the last 36 months. These projects are where information has been gathered and published on the Register by a project developer/ owner/ administrator or found via publicly available information.

Many new projects offer a package of community benefits with a value equivalent to £5,000/MW a year, in line with the Good Practice Principles. However, the figure shown may be more or less than this for several reasons:

• No new projects commissioned in the last 36 months.
• Projects commissioned in the last 36 months don’t have community benefit data recorded.
• Projects commissioned in the last 36 months with a community or developer form attached are for a technology other than onshore wind.
• Projects commissioned in the last 36 months can’t offer a package of benefits with a value equivalent to £5,000 /MW a year.
• Projects commissioned in the last 36 months offer a package of benefits with a value equivalent to more than £5,000/MW a year.

Note that contributions from wholly owned community projects are excluded from this calculation.

Total community benefits paid in the last year

This is an overview of the value of committed community benefits from all registered, operational projects. The value of the community benefits are either recorded by a project developer / owner / administrator, or found via publicly available information. This figure details the total value of the community benefits that have been committed to communities across Scotland in the previous 12-month period.

The information captures community benefits paid across all technologies (except transmission infrastructure) in last year. Different technologies may have different payment mechanisms for community benefits.

The information captures community benefits paid from projects which were established prior to Scottish Government’s Good Practice Principles. For example, the Good Practice Principles for onshore renewable energy projects have only been in place since 2014.

From July 2024 onwards, we are capturing actual fund spend from projects through annual reports. It will take time for updates to come in and annual reports to be submitted. The Onshore Wind Sector Deal (published September 2023) commits the sector to providing annual updates to the Register. We expect that the committed funds and actual fund spend figures will become closer over time as reports are submitted. There may still be a difference in the figures, for example due to:

• The number of projects / size of investment requested is less than the funding available.
• There was a lack of suitable projects for fund spend (eg ineligible applications or poor alignment with fund priorities.
• Funding was brought forward and allocated in a previous funding period.
• Funding was rolled over to be allocated in a later funding period.
• Communities facing different priorities and different demands for community benefit spend over the lifetime of the renewable energy project. This can provide changes to the annual fund spend eg larger spend was evidenced as communities recovered from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic or larger spend is evidenced when a community completes an asset transfer of a community facility.
• The community projects receiving investment were more or less than the funding provided in one year.

Most project developers / owners will have a personalised login page to update their project details. If you don’t have this or have forgotten the details, please contact Local Energy Scotland.

Adding details of your renewable energy project and any associated community benefits ensures transparency and trust with communities and highlights the great work that the sector is doing.

The Register is voluntary and relies on project developers / owners / administrators sharing their experiences and the lessons they’ learnt. If you’re a provider of community benefits, we’d be grateful if you could share information.

If you want to add details of a project that isn’t on the Register, please contact us. We’ll need to know:

• the name of the project
• project stage
• local authority area
• installed capacity
• type of renewable technology

The Scottish Government’s ambition is to have 2 gigawatts (GW) of community and locally owned energy by the end of 2030.

This dataset shows community and locally owned renewable energy projects across Scotland. Browse the map and list to discover the projects that are contributing to Scottish targets for community and locally owned energy. These include projects that have received funding from the Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES).

The map shows projects recorded in the community and locally owned renewable energy database. This database is owned by the Scottish Government and maintained by Energy Saving Trust.

Operational projects not shown on the map, though still counting towards the community and locally owned renewable energy capacity total, include:

• Projects with renewable energy capacities of under 50 kilowatts (kW).
• Projects that can’t be shared publicly.

For projects in shared ownership, only the percentage of the capacity that’s community or locally owned is reported to contribute towards the total installed capacity.

We seek information from a variety of sources for the community and locally owned renewable energy database. You can find a list of the main data sources used in the latest annual community and locally owned renewable energy in Scotland report on Energy Saving Trust’s website.

For projects where we can’t get complete information, we’ve estimated the likely installed capacity based on:

• technology type
• ownership category
• building type

You can find a full list of assumptions used in the annual report.

The full update for the community and locally owned database and map is carried out annually in preparation for the community and locally owned renewable energy report. Updates received throughout the year are added to the map monthly.

To provide an update on a project or to add a community or locally owned renewable energy project to the map, please email us.