Local Energy Policy Statement: consultation analysis

Executive Summary

Introduction

Scotland’s Energy Strategy, published in December 2017, included the development of “innovative local energy systems” as one of six strategic priorities. 

To support that aim, a commitment was made to develop a Local Energy Position Paper, which would set out a series of key principles and associated outcomes for a broad range of stakeholders to consider during the development of future local energy projects.

A public consultation, shaped by an external steering group (co-chaired by the Scottish Government and comprised of representatives from industry, communities and other relevant bodies) and a series of external stakeholder workshops, ran from 9 October 2019 to 4 December 2019 to seek views on a range of issues. 

We have sought feedback from stakeholders across Scotland to help inform the final version of the Policy Statement.

The starting position was that this document would not be providing specific project guidance or delivery models – nor will it mandate any actions to be undertaken by any party. Instead, it will provide key principles that, if adopted during the development of future local energy projects, will deliver the fair and inclusive outcomes Scotland wants.

Responses to the consultation will be used to inform the final version of the Policy Statement.

Respondent Profile

There were 46 responses to the consultation: 44 from organisations and 2 from individuals. Respondents were assigned to respondent groupings in order to enable analysis of any differences or commonalities across or within the various different types of organisations and individuals that responded.  

A list of all those organisations that submitted a response to the consultation and agreed to have their response published are included within Appendix 1. The following table shows the numbers of responses in each analysis group.

For clarity, the “industry” category is predominately comprised of renewable energy developers and generators.

46 organisations and individuals from the following respondent sub-groups submitted a response to the consultation:

Respondent Groups

Methodology

Consultation respondents had the opportunity to submit responses via:

• Citizen Space (the Scottish Government consultation platform) 
• Email 
• Hard copy

All of the consultation questions include free text boxes to encourage respondents to provide their own feedback.

This report summarises the key findings from the feedback received, including:

• The total number of responses received for a particular question, as well as a percentage of this as a total 
• A summary of any trends/ patterns identified within the comments received

The Scottish Government has considered all comments made by respondents to each question, and this document seeks to identify and highlight any similarities or differences between respondent groups to determine whether any specific area or theme was of particular interest to certain groups. However, it is important to note that there may be variations of opinion within groups and some respondents may have chosen not to comment on certain question(s).

While the consultation gave all who wished to comment an opportunity to do so, given the self-selecting nature of this type of exercise, any findings detailed here cannot be extrapolated to a wider population outwith the respondent sample.