Community Renewables in Action!

Our community renewables project stepped up a gear last month when we held a start-up meeting with renewable energy consultant, Malcolm Wilkinson of Locogen.

SKDT has received a grant of £7,666 from Local Energy Scotland to explore the potential for community wind and hydro projects on Saddel and Ifferdale Farms. The grant will fund a two stage feasibility study, the first stage of which will be a desk-top study of six sites, highlighting the potential and barriers for development at each.

Stage two will involve more detailed investigation of the most promising sites, with a view to identifying one to take forward to a detailed feasibility study, where we will gather seasonal wind resource or water-flow recordings, and investigate all of the relevant planning, environmental, technical and financial factors that will help us decide if we have a viable project on our hands.

We were joined by Iona Hodge of Local Energy Scotland and guided around the sites by Terrence Glenn and Andrew Gemmill, who have kindly given permission for us to undertake the surveys on their farms. It was a stormy day and our potential wind sites were showing plenty of promise!

Locogen will provide feedback from the Stage One survey in mid-November and we will give an update in December.