Meeting of the Parliament 27 May 2025
There are a few reasons for that. Historically, communities felt that they almost had to be engineers or to have an expert in their community, and one of the reasons why we set up CARES was to share information with communities on how to implement projects. We are 55 per cent towards our target of renewable community energy generation by 2030. In large part, there has been a real step change in the number of projects because of CARES.
Of course, there are still other barriers—I will mention them in other parts of my speech—and there is a lot that we can do to bring them down. Patrick Harvie’s position is absolutely right. I want the barriers to communities’ ability to take forward projects to be looked at and eliminated as much as possible.
The £8 million community energy generation growth fund will boost community energy and it is a significant expansion on last year’s community energy pilot. Going back to Patrick Harvie’s point, we have seen success with the funding that has been given to CARES in work with communities to overcome some of those barriers. That is why we did the pilot and put the additional £8 million into it. The fund will support community groups across Scotland to develop their own wind and solar photovoltaic projects. Applications for funding are now open and will close on 25 June. Full funding guidance, including information on how to apply, can be found on the Local Energy Scotland website, which includes a list of Local Energy Scotland officials in an area with whom communities can get in touch in the first instance.