Representatives of the Stornoway Trust, Muaitheabhal Community Wind Farm Trust and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar recently met to discuss the progress of work to take.
If the ownership stake can be delivered in full it will bring around 80MW of wind
energy generation into community ownership. This will represent the largest community-owned
windfarm in the UK and will drive significant and transformational income for the
Outer Hebrides.
The key area of update to the Joint Venture Board revolved around initial discussions with both public bodies and commercial lenders. These discussions were highly positive with each of the potential lenders being enthusiastic and seeing potential to become involved in the project.
Speaking after the meeting, Norman Maciver, chair of the Stornoway Trust and also chair of the Joint Venture Working Group said: “From the outset of discussions around renewable energy it has been a key goal of the Stornoway Trust that the community is able to share in the benefits of any major wind farm through an ownership stake in that wind farm.
“20% ownership in the Stornoway Wind Farm was therefore negotiated by the Trust as part of its lease agreement with Lewis Wind Power. That created an important benchmark that has subsequently been replicated by Eurowind in relation to the Uisenis Windfarm.”
He added: “Negotiating these industry-leading levels of community ownership in the
two commercial wind energy projects was only a first step, however. We are now moving
into a critical phase around exploring the financing of the project.
“It is therefore hugely pleasing that the initial suite of meetings with potential lenders and other interested parties has been highly positive with an enthusiastic reception around what the Stornoway Trust and its partners are seeking to achieve.
“These discussions will continue over the next period. For obvious reasons there is a high degree of confidentiality around our commercial discussions and deliberations, and it is therefore not possible to go into further detail at this stage. We will, however, be able to make more information available to the community in due course as the process develops and matures.”
Mr Maciver concluded: “The potential of the community owning up to 20% of the Stornoway and Uisenis wind farms offers huge opportunity for new community and economic development for our islands over the next decades. This level of ownership has the potential to bring significant new revenues to the islands and we will be consulting with the community, in due course, regarding the investment approach to these revenues”.
Chair of Muaitheabhal Community Wind Farm Trust, Iain MacIver said: “Although there is much work to be done over the next years to finalise the financials of the project, this initial market testing exercise has demonstrated that there is significant appetite for investment in our project.
“We now want to build on this initial work and over the next period we will be opening new discussions with other potential funders as well as deepening the work that has been done with the initial suite of potential partners”.
Paul Steele, leader of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, said: “It is heartening that these initial discussions show a clear route to market for what we are seeking to achieve around community ownership.
“That work will continue over the next period and in support of it we will be constituting the Joint Venture into a formal legal entity. We will also be commissioning independent financial advice to help build the initial financial models and the legal frameworks that will safeguard the community’s position. I am of the view that what we are seeking to achieve is an exemplar for community ownership within commercial wind projects.
“As such we will be engaging with political representatives in both London and Edinburgh to ensure active and engaged political support for the project”.
Bid for 20% community ownership stake in two Lewis windfarms
1 April 2025
