by David Thomson, Chief Executive of Shetland Aerogenerators Ltd
Simple answers are good. Sometimes. Simple answers are not good for complicated questions though. Our energy system is complicated. Regulated electricity networks are complicated. Sustainability in rural communities is complicated. The policy and costs breakdown of our electricity bills is complicated. Yet I keep hearing a lot of simple answers to the challenges we face. Most of those answers don’t pass close inspection. The people who told us that Brexit would solve everything are maybe not the right people to listen to when they’re telling us that stopping net zero will solve everything. These are complicated problems and renewable energy is part of the answer.
Climate arguments are clear that we need to decarbonise. Wind, solar and other renewable energy sources reduce carbon emissions.
Fuel poverty levels show clearly that we need to reduce energy costs. Wholesale power prices are tangibly less on the days when we have greatest proportion of wind or solar energy being produced.
Job losses in oil & gas demonstrate the clear need for a just transition. It’s the same technicians that used to work on oil platforms who will work on windmills and grid networks in the future.
The switch from centralised to decentralised energy systems clearly places new burdens on our communities. The community wealth from local renewable energy projects can deliver wide-ranging, long-term economic, social, and environmental benefits. We do have to see windmills though.
But this is all still complicated. It ends up an opaque balance of costs and benefits. It can be very difficult to see how an individual project affects bills or how those bills are more expensive because of other influences less obvious on our doorsteps. It’s difficult to know what local and regional communities should be doing. Doing nothing is not an option. Moratoriums on development are legislatively impossible and concede defeat on community wealth building that could fight depopulation. I’m not sure abdicating responsibility is a good strategy for Shetland.
In my role as co-chair of the Shetland Net Zero Energy Forum, I was part of the energy taskforce who developed the recently published Fair Share for Shetland principles. Some of the elements identified in that report, such as community benefit schemes, have been explored in further detail in separate reports.
My company has had these principles and many thoughts in mind after our public exhibition in March this year regarding the Neshion Energy Park project next to Sullom Voe Terminal. That project has had a number of changes since the first engagement based on environmental surveys and local feedback. This includes the removal of two turbines, which has increased the distance away from the nearest properties in Toft. This also reduces the impacts on birds and peat. Some of the key inputs received during that consultation were around community benefit and involvement.
The single biggest feedback by far from nearly everyone who came through the door at the Mossbank Hall was that their electricity bills were too high.
I could fill the rest of this page on how balancing mechanism costs are less than 5% of the average bill, how network costs are nearer 20% and how the underlying energy price remains the key influence on your final bill amount. Electricity is cheapest when renewables are used the most and most expensive when demand is highest and we have to turn on outdated gas plants. The wholesale price of electricity is mostly set by the price of gas. It’s rarely set by the price of wind because the marginal cost of wind (or solar) is virtually zero. So, wind energy is making bills cheaper than they would be otherwise.
But that’s a complicated answer. We want simple answers.
My team decided to change the question from the very complicated “how do wind energy projects make things better?” to the more straightforward “how can we make bills cheaper?”
In response to the challenge set by the people who came to our event, we have concluded that the Neshion Energy Park will introduce a Local Electricity Discount Scheme for eligible households and businesses in the communities directly neighbouring the project. Sometimes a simple answer can be good and if we want to see lower electricity bills then one way to achieve that is to offer a direct discount on people’s electricity bills. You said. We did. Simple.
There are examples of schemes like this elsewhere that we intend to replicate but it will be important that we explore how this can best be done in a Shetland context. We need to finalise exact details and consider a range of other benefit options with ideas from the community on how these could best be delivered and how we can support what’s already working locally.
The next Neshion Energy Park public engagement will take place on Tuesday 23rd of September 2025, from 3:30pm to 7:30pm, at Mossbank Public Hall. We welcome all members of the community to attend and continue the conversation.