UK government gives more rights to communities on onshore wind projects

The federal government of UK has introduced a new planning guidance giving more rights to local communities in questioning the location of onshore wind projects.

In addition, the authorities have increased community funds value by five-fold to £150m from future onshore wind farm projects in England.

The new guidance reiterates that environmental and communities’ interests are more important than renewable energy targets.

Onshore wind energy industry is expected to present the reworked Community Benefit Protocol by the end of 2013, which includes community benefit package of £5,000 per MW every year until the lifetime of the project.

Earlier, the community benefits were £1,000 per MW of installed capacity per year.

The communities would be granted a benefit package of £100,000 per year, or reduction of £400 from each household’s annual bill every year upon approval of a medium-sized 20MW wind farm.

Commenting on the new planning guidance, Secretary of State Edward Davey said that the developments are aimed at making onshore wind energy sustainable both economically and environmentally.

"This is an important sector that is driving economic growth, supporting thousands of new jobs and providing a significant share of our electricity and I’m determined that local communities should share in these benefits," added Davey.

Industry groups, however, have expressed mixed reviews for the proposed planning guidance with RenewableUK stating that the high increase in community benefits may hamper growth of the sector.

RenewableUK chief executive Maria McCaffery stated: "Developing wind farms requires a significant amount of investment to be made upfront. Adding to this cost, by following the Government’s advice that we should pay substantially more into community funds for future projects, will unfortunately make some planned wind energy developments uneconomic in England, so they will not go ahead and that is very disappointing."

UK government is expected to execute these changes over the next 12 months with industry and communities backing it.