Community and locally owned energy in Scotland: 2025 report

Errata published on 15 April 2026:

We’ve revised the total operational capacity figures for community and locally owned renewable energy on behalf of the Scottish Government. The revision is due to an error identified in a Local Authority Survey return following additional quality assurance carried out after publication.

We’ve made the following revisions:

• Local authority owned solar thermal capacity is 6MW (down from 12MW).
• Reported headline capacity is 1,148MW (down from 1,154MW).
• Progress to the 2GW target as of the end of December 2025 is 57% (down from 58%).

We’ve revised these figures in the following pages of the main report:

• Executive summary
• Figures 1-4 and 6
• Tables 1-5
• Accompanying commentary associated with these tables and charts.

We’ve also revised the figures in Tables 6-7 in the methodology document.

Background

Community and locally owned renewable energy places communities at the heart of the energy transition. This supports Scotland’s journey to net zero and ensures communities benefit from their local renewable energy resources. By transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy, we can reduce our CO₂ emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting community and local ownership of energy. It remains focused on its target of 2GW (2,000MW) of community and locally owned energy in Scotland by 2030.

The Scottish Government asked us to produce a database of all community and locally owned renewable energy installations in Scotland. This database is used to monitor and report annually on progress towards the Scottish Government’s target.

This report presents the headline figures as of 31 December 2025 for community and locally owned renewable energy in Scotland and reviews the progress made towards the target. It then explores this progress by:

• ownership category
• technology
• local authority

This provides a broader picture of the sector in Scotland. Also, we’ve prepared an adjoining methodology document to the main report.

If you have any questions or comments about the Community and Locally Owned renewable energy database, or this report and the adjoining methodology document, please email [email protected].

Executive summary

There were 47,860 community and locally owned renewable energy installations at the end of December 2025, with a capacity of 1,148MW. These installations could produce an estimated 2,050GWh of renewable energy annually.

The Scottish Government has progressed 57% towards its 2030 target of having 2GW (2,000MW) of operational renewable energy capacity in community and local ownership.

At the end of December 2025, there was an estimated 15MWh of operational energy storage capacity in community and local ownership in Scotland from 1,260 installations. There were a further 2MWh in development from 150 installations.