Brockwell Energy creates industry first with huge funding boost for 9CCG
Stephen McCarron - Chief Operating Officer 9CC Group
9CCG is pleased to announce it has secured a £628,000 first instalment of “boost funding” from Brockwell Energy’s North Kyle windfarm site.
It’s the first-time windfarm developers in Scotland have provided community funded benefit for local projects ahead of a site starting operations.
The £628,000 comes on top of initial funding of £200,000 to help the 9CCG with set up costs and marks a major and continued commitment by Brockwell Energy to invest in the 9CCG to allow it to fund projects for local communities.
This is in addition to an indexed £1,102,000 per annum based on the standard £5,000 per annum per MW which will commence when the scheme is fully commissioned, generating around £60 million over its 35 year operating life.
This award together with support from REG Windpower (Knockkippen), OnPath Energy (Lethans) and Invenergy (Pencloe) allows the 9CCG to fulfils its first major community funding. The successful bids are being announced shortly.
Stephen McCarron, 9CCG Chief Operating Officer, said: “This is a significant gift by Brockwell Energy and we are delighted by their ongoing support and commitment to our communities. To lead the industry and deliver funding ahead of the site operating will not only help many local groups now but sets out a funding model that we believe should be rolled out across Scotland. That would be game changing for so many communities and we are excited to be pioneers with developers such as Brockwell, OnPath Energy and Invenergy on delivering lasting community benefit throughout the lifecycle of windfarm developments.”
“Their ongoing commitment and the support shown by Red Rock (Benbrack), Energie Kontor (Overhill), RES Group (Slenteuch) and Wind Estate (The Drum) for a co-ordinated and collaborative community funding model has been hugely important.”
The 9CCG has been set up by the nine communities to take control of and coordinate the dissemination of community benefit that will arise from the cluster of wind farms being developed in the surrounding area.
Alex Baird, Chair of the 9CCG commented: “We’ve had great support from a number of developers and special mention should be made of Brockwell, Banks Renewables and Invenergy who have already provided financial support to help establish the 9CCG. We appreciate their generosity, particularly the £628,000 of boost funding from Brockwell, which is over and above the levels mandated by the Scottish government and has allowed the 9CCG to start disseminating funds on local projects.”
“In the recent funding round we received over 80 requests amounting to more than £750k, which shows the clear community need for such funding. These will be scrutinised and recipients will be announced shortly, building on the strong community engagement we have had across East Ayrshire. We look forward to working with local stakeholders and Brockwell to deliver both strategic and legacy benefits for our communities. Unsuccessful projects will be assisted in making applications in the next funding round.”
Iain Cockburn, CFO of Brockwell Energy added: “In the past some developers, including ourselves, chose to lead consultation processes themselves resulting in funding decisions being made in isolation and without any overall coordination with other developers and without considering the overall long term funding position available to the communities.
“As more schemes are commissioned this practice would lead to more and more developers running their own consultation processes in parallel without any coordination or overall planning or control. The result would clearly be confusion and sub-optimal decision making.
“We welcome the chance to work with the 9CCG and see the value in their coordination of the process to ensure the right long term legacy benefits are identified by the communities and delivered. The huge amount of funding at stake will make it increasingly important that funding dissemination is carefully coordinated to best serve those communities.”
Mr McCarron added: “The hills around our communities are ideal for hosting a large cluster of wind schemes that are not only of significant national importance in achieving climate change goals but will generate community benefit that will exceed £150 million over the next 40 years.
“These schemes do have a local impact so it is imperative that those communities work together to maximise the benefit that they can secure from these schemes to compensate.”
The nine community councils are: Auchinleck; Patna; Ochiltree & Skares; New Cumnock; Netherthird; Cronberry, Lugan & Lugart; Drongam, Rankinson & Stair; Dalmellington; and Cumnock.
