Community and locally owned energy in Scotland: 2022 report

Background

The Scottish Government has set a target of 2 GW of renewable energy to be community or locally owned by 2030. 

Renewable energy technologies are defined as those which generate electricity, heat or both from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed. Common sources of renewable energy include solar energy, wind energy, hydropower and bioenergy.

Energy Saving Trust was asked in 2011 by the Scottish Government to produce a database of all community and locally owned renewable energy installations in Scotland. This database is used to monitor progress towards the Scottish Government’s target and progress is reported on annually.

This database has been updated each year since 2011 and includes, as far as possible, all installations known to be operating, under construction, or in earlier stages of development as of 31 December 2022.

It is important to be aware that we have updated aspects of the time series as part of our continual improvement of the data and reporting method which means historic figures published in this report will differ from previous reports in the series.

If you have any questions or comments about the Community and Locally Owned renewable energy database, or the accompanying analysis and this report, please email RenewableReporting@est.org.uk

Key findings from the Executive Summary

The findings from this work are that at the end of December 2022:

• An estimated 908 MW of community and locally owned renewable energy capacity from 26,290 installations was operational in Scotland. This is estimated to produce 1,933 GWh of renewable energy annually.
• This means the Scottish Government has progressed 45% towards its 2030 target of having 2 GW of operational renewable energy capacity in community and local ownership.
• There was 37 MW of operational capacity newly identified by Energy Saving Trust in this reporting year. Approximately 20 MW of this capacity became operational in the 2022 reporting year, with the remaining 17 MW attributed to previous reporting years.  
• The greatest share of operational capacity of community and locally owned energy by:
  • Ownership category is farm and estate (41%, 370 MW), followed by local authority (17%, 157 MW) and local business (13%, 117 MW).
  • Technology is wind (37%, 338 MW), followed by biomass (30%, 277 MW).
  • Local authority area is Aberdeenshire (25%, 226 MW), followed by Highland (12%, 110 MW).
• The greatest share of operational number of installations of community and locally owned energy by:
  • Ownership category is housing association (46%, 12,050), followed by local authorities (43%, 11,340).
  • Technology is solar photo voltaic (PV) (44%, 11,570), followed by heat pump (34%, 8,870).
  • Local authority area is Stirling (9%, 2,420), followed by South Lanarkshire (9%, 2,250).
• In addition to the 908 MW of operational capacity, there is an estimated 1,505 MW in various stages of development.