Scottish Affairs Committee – House of Commons

Submission to the Scottish Affairs Committee -House of Commons

Excerpt: The renewable energy sector contributed a net output of just over 0.5% to total Scottish GDP in 2015 . Output from wind turbines was 62% of total renewable output in 2014 , so the contribution of wind energy to Scottish GDP is around the 0.3% mark.

While the Scottish wind sector may have employed 5,400 people in 2013 , it is important to remember that the bulk of these jobs will have been in development and construction and are by their nature short-term and temporary. As the authors of a recent survey for the UK Government remark, “[d]uring the operations phase [for onshore wind], the number of jobs falls dramatically and these may be dispersed from the site” . As an energy technology, onshore wind employs remarkably few people in Scotland compared to fossil fuel or nuclear power stations. Many wind farms are operated remotely online from centres outside Scotland.

Scotland has failed to establish a manufacturing industry for wind. Only one factory exists which produces wind towers and this owes its continued existence to a buy-out by SSE and a £3.4 million investment by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. It provided 134 full-time equivalent posts in 2013.

A constant complaint from communities forced to host wind farms is that they provide no long-term or permanent employment for locals beyond the “cement and sandwiches” phase of construction. Academic research bears out the perception that while wind turbines may cause rural GDP to increase, there is almost no effect on local household income unless the turbines are locally owned (eg. by farmers) or in community ownership…..

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