Rent raised through nondomestic rates from wind farms and single turbines: EIR release

Information requested

Stats concerning wind farms and single turbines in Scotland. Could you please supply me with the total amount of money raised through the collection non domestic rates for the above in the 2022/23 tax year.

Response

As at 1 July 2022, an estimated £82,282,187.946 was expected to be raised in 2022-2023 in nondomestic rates income from the 597 non-domestic properties which are identified on the Valuation Roll as wind farms or wind turbines.

The figure is sourced from the Valuation Roll provided by the Scottish Assessors Association and the Billing Snapshot 2022 which contains relief information supplied to Scottish Government by local councils. The figure is a snapshot as at 1 July 2022 and is an estimate of the total amount of the net non-domestic rates bill of wind farms and wind turbines for the financial year 2022-2023.

It should be noted that the figure reflects the rateable values and relief awards in place on 1 July 2022, as if they were in place for the entire year. These figures are likely to differ from the final, audited values of reliefs in 2022-2023.

Reliefs may be awarded and backdated, and some awards may be cancelled before the end of the year. As we only collect property-level relief information as a snapshot, any changes made after 1 July 2022 (regardless of whether they are backdated, cancelled or expired before 1 July 2022), are not known to us and therefore not included in this figure.

Wind farms and wind turbines are not clearly labelled as such on the Valuation Roll, so the list of 597 wind farms and wind turbines identified by us as at 1 July 2022 may be non-exhaustive. These properties were identified on the Valuation Roll and Billing Snapshot 2022 by filtering for properties with the core description ‘electricity’ as well as looking for properties containing the words ‘wind’, ‘turbine’, or ‘aero’ in the address, business name, or detailed description.

This will exclude wind farms and single turbines which form part of cumulative or designated utility entries on the valuation roll, which may include different type of electricity generation in a single entry. Non-domestic rates are administered by local councils, who may be able to provide outturn information for 2022-2023.