SSE: Strategic Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting
Standardized and transparent community fund
WHAT?
For over ten years we have established funds to enable communities to develop sustainably by funding charitable and community initiatives. Communities can access funds which we make available near each of our renewable energy developments.
In Great Britain, since 2002, we have supported over 1,000 community projects with grants totalling over £13 million. We set up local and regional community funds for each new onshore wind farm we build. For our local funds, panels made up of community members review applications and decide which projects to support, and we work closely with the panel and applicants to ensure opportunities are maximized for the benefit of the community.
In January 2012, we launched what we believe to be the most generous community investment fund package of any of the major developers operating in Scotland. To make sure everyone is treated equally, this package is offered, without exception, for every future onshore wind farm we are developing in Scotland.
WHY?
SSE has been building and operating wind farms in Scotland since 2002. Combined with our hydroelectric schemes, many of which have been in operation for over 50 years, our wind farms make us the largest generator of renewable energy across Great Britain and Ireland.
When the majority of our hydroelectric stations were built in the middle of the last century, we never even considered the idea of setting aside funds for local groups to invest in projects that would benefit their communities. At the time, ‘community benefit’ was only considered in terms of the electrification of the Highlands and of the resulting prosperity the project brought to the area through the creation of jobs, local business opportunities and improvements to local roads and other infrastructure.
But times change, and today we recognize that the development of new renewable energy projects should also bring more direct financial benefits to the communities that host them. We believe that the local community is best placed to decide what they should invest their fund in. We want them to have control over how the money is spent because they know what is important to their communities – not us!
HOW?
Every onshore wind farm is different, so the size of the fund will vary from site to site, but the basis of the calculation remains exactly the same, so an onshore wind farm that is twice as big as another will have exactly double the amount of community investment compared with the smaller onshore wind farm. We measure the size of our onshore wind farms in terms of the ‘installed capacity’. This is the maximum theoretical output of the wind farm, measured in ‘megawatts’ (MW). The value of the community investment funds we set aside for onshore wind farms in Scotland is currently £5,000 per MW every year for up to 25 years.
