Housing associations feel wind of change

Published on Saturday 6 June 2009 14:23

A CONSORTIUM of Scottish housing associations is preparing to make a move into the renewable energy market.

Four social housing groups, in Fife, Berwickshire, Falkirk and Argyll and Bute, are poised to submit planning applications for community wind farms, which they hope will reduce fuel poverty in Scotland.

It is intended that profits from the wind farms, which would each generate enough electricity to power as many as 3,000 homes, would be returned to the community and reduce heating bills for local residents.

The projects, which will be delivered by the Link Group, Berwickshire Housing Association, Fine Homes in Argyll And Bute and Fife's Kingdom Housing Association, will mark a significant shift for the social housing movement, which used to focus solely on providing accommodation for people on low incomes. Social housing groups are increasingly diversifying their business models, with several also planning to let homes to young professionals and middle-class pensioners who have been squeezed out of the mortgage market.

The consortium has completed feasibility studies for each project with the help of trade body Community Energy Scotland and expects to submit planning and grid applications shortly. It is expected the projects will be loan financed by a combination of high street and social banks.

Alan Hobbett, chairman of Community Energy Scotland, who is advising the housing associations, expects a boom in community wind farm projects over the next 10 to 15 years. The organisation is aiming for 10 per cent of all electricity in Scotland to be generated by community-owned renewable energy projects by 2024.

"All of these projects will be commercially viable," he said. "If we reach that goal, 400million could be generated each and every year which can be fed directly back to communities."

Hobbett said the first community wind farm on the Isle of Gigha generated enough cash to pay off its debtors within four years. It now brings in net profits of around 100,000 for the community each year.