What’s going on here?
Residents of Dalry in North Ayrshire can apply for assistance to pay their bills thanks to a new £300,000 energy fund.
What does this mean?
The 42 megawatt Dalry Community Wind Farm is located in North Ayrshire. The energy fund is thanks to a partnership between Community Windpower and Dalry Parish Boundary Trust.
Applications are open to anyone in the town of Dalry struggling to pay bills in the cost of living crisis. The grants are focused on supporting vulnerable households. These include people living in poverty, people with disabilities, pensioners, and those requiring medical equipment which uses a lot of power.
Why should we care?
Scotland’s dynamic coast and windy climate holds huge potential for wind power. This is an incredible tool which can help us transition away from fossil fuels and to renewable sources of power. However this boom of new industry has triggered debates about who gets access to the energy, jobs and money.
Dalry is a community-owned wind farm, which benefits communities more than commercial ones do. Private, commercial wind farms can provide income to local communities in the form of voluntary community benefit payments.
Payments to local communities represent an effort to make the development of wind farms fair and equitable. They provide compensation to communities impacted by the construction, and ensure that the energy generated by these projects doesn’t just end up in the hands of corporations.
Be Curious!
· Check out this article which summarises some of the injustices against local communities which can arise in the development of offshore wind.
· From the Curious Archives: read more about the UK’s wind power potential, and how despite this the government is placing barriers on renewables.
· Scotland has potential as a pioneer in renewables. Nevertheless the UK government is getting ready to approve Rosebank: an oil field which would release more carbon than all low-income countries do in one year. Sign the petition to Stop Rosebank.