Energy and heat – collective action

A Vision for East Lothian’s Energy and Heat

What if all the buildings in East Lothian had ample, affordable, efficient, sustainably and locally sourced electricity & heat?

What if our electricity & heat infrastructures were largely owned by our communities—keeping wealth local, benefiting people, and moving us towards sustainable futures?

The Heat and Energy picture in East Lothian

East Lothian’s energy landscape reflects both opportunities and challenges. The region relies heavily on gas, with residential heating predominantly powered by natural gas. Key concerns include:

• Housing Stock Challenges: Many homes in East Lothian are older, with lower energy efficiency, making retrofitting essential but complex.
• Fuel Poverty: A significant proportion of residents experience fuel poverty, worsened by fluctuating energy prices.
• Decarbonisation Needs: Transitioning to low-carbon heating solutions like air-source heat pumps and district heating systems is essential but difficult to fund.
• Skills Gaps: As a result of the lack of centralised government funding and incentives for homes and businesses to decarbonise their heating supply, East Lothian’s workforce does not include enough workers skilled in doing the work needed to accomplish the solutions available. We can only incentivise the acquisition of these skills if it makes good business sense for companies and contractors to do so.  

There is a growing shift toward renewable energy in Scotland, with much of the infrastructure based in and around East Lothian. For example, East Lothian is seeing investments in offshore and onshore wind and solar PV installations. However, these schemes often have limited levels of community ownership. The East Lothian Climate Hub advocates for (in order of priority):

• True Community Ownership of Renewable Energy Generation: The benefits of energy being locally created, owned, distributed, and used are profoundly transformative to communities. As much as 32x more revenue was generated by a Western Isles’ community-owned wind farm in Point & Sandwick, compared to a ‘traditional’ commercial development. However, these schemes take large amounts of capital to fund, and face challenges connecting to the grid. Learn more from Community Energy Scotland. 
• Shared Ownership of Renewable Energy Generation: This could potentially give community groups the chance to make an investment in a commercially owned renewable energy project. Learn more from Local Energy Scotland.
• Maximising the Impact of Community Benefits: Community benefits are voluntary benefits which renewable energy developers provide to local communities, outside of the planning and licensing processes. You can learn more about it from a variety of sources including the Scottish Government. We suggest that Climate Resilience, Adaptation, and Mitigation activities would be an appropriate priority for these available funds.

Despite some advancements, the potential for community renewable energy generation, community ownership, and sustainable heat solutions is under-realised. There is also significant controversy in East Lothian regarding the impact of renewable energy developments on local biodiversity, agriculture, and the wellbeing of communities that have to cope with these large industrial infrastructure projects.

The picture below is indicative of the carbon footprint of various sources, tracking changes from 1990 to 2022. Although there is still much work to do to reduce our greenhouse emissions, it is okay to allow ourselves to celebrate the progress that we have made to date.

Interested in getting more involved? E-mail the East Lothian Climate Hub Manager and Energy and Heat Theme Lead Bobby at bobby@eastlothianclimatehub.org for any questions, comments, or if you would like to volunteer and get more involved with collective action in this theme across East Lothian.