All Orkney residents are set to benefit from a large wind farm being built by the local council after securing £62 million in funding from the UK’s National Wealth Fund.
Council officials said all profits from the project to build up to 18 turbines across three islands in Orkney would be spent on local services, in what is expected to become the UK’s largest publicly owned wind farm.
Construction of the first phase, to erect six 150-metre-high turbines near the island’s main town of Kirkwall, is due to begin in 2027 after Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed on Tuesday that the National Wealth Fund would bear the construction costs.
The turbines, which will generate enough electricity to power around 47,000 homes, are expected to bring in around £3.3 million a year to support council spending from 2028 onwards, raising around £120 million over the life of the project.
Ensuring all profits were kept on Orkney, to fund local services, made a crucial difference in winning public support, its supporters said.
Community leaders across the Highlands and other islands have sharply criticized the rapid development of large wind projects and plans for hundreds of miles of new towers, in part because profits will flow to private companies and investors.
Orkney is also seen as culturally attuned to renewable energy sources. The islands are home to one of the world’s leading wave and tidal energy research centres, have the highest levels of electric vehicle ownership in the UK, and are home to six smaller community-owned wind farms. In addition, about 10% of homes have their own turbines.
Heather Woodbridge, council leader, and Swen Johnston, Orkney’s head of enterprise and economic growth, said public ownership meant their scheme was “more acceptable and understandable” to residents.
“This is a different model than other rural areas, where you might see larger companies come in and identify the natural assets that we have here, and those profits go elsewhere,” Woodbridge said.
“At the end of the day, we live, see and work a little closer to this industrial landscape, but knowing that the money will fund the school your child goes to, or social care for a neighbor or relative [makes it] “More acceptable to local communities.”
“It’s a really powerful message,” Johnston said. “It’s kind of universalizing all these benefits so that they’re used for the people of Orkney in a fair and transparent way. Local authority ownership is something that’s much fairer and really benefits everyone.”
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In addition to the council income, £144,000 per year will be split between community councils in Orkney, with 60% going to the two councils closest to the scheme in Quanterness and the remainder shared between the rest.
The council also hopes to install a further six turbines on Hoy, a large island just south of the main Orkney island, and six turbines on Farai, an uninhabited island recently purchased by the council, within the next few years.
Each scheme is due to be 30MW, but the Howe project has been delayed by a sharp rise in the cost of laying an undersea cable to the Orkney mainland, which the council must pay for.
The global race to install renewable energy sources has sent costs skyrocketing and led to shortages of essential equipment and materials, including specialized boats to lay cables, Stein said.
Zoe Holliday, chief executive of Community Energy Scotland, said the issue of community ownership and wealth building has come into sharp focus in the debate around the transition away from oil and gas.
Community and publicly owned projects returned to local communities far more than the £5,000 per megawatt of capacity typically provided by private projects, Holiday said. She said islanders in Harris were hoping to build a 43MW scheme that would be collectively owned.
“There is real political will at both Scottish and UK levels to support community energy,” she said. “We can change our communities if we give them a stake in this system.”