Area Profile – Western Isles

The Western Isles, situated 55km off the northwest coast of Scotland and an hour’s flight from Glasgow or Edinburgh, is a world away in terms of lower business overhead costs, security considerations, and a high skills base to tap into.

The high quality environment creates unique opportunities including the real possibility of becoming a global player in renewable energy generation and technology, and the associated manufacturing and support prospects.

With a local economy valued at over £220 million, the 26,000 islanders are poised to see wind power and other forms of renewable energy contribute an ever bigger contribution to the islands’ fortunes. Indeed, renewable energy is core to the vision of future communities within the Western Isles. Recognising the substantial alternative energy resource, Western Isles Enterprise (WIE) have created a framework in which renewable energy evolves in harmony with their strategic objectives of Energy Innovation Zones and local partnerships, business support and infrastructure, broadband, culture and heritage, Civil Service job dispersal, and the UHI Millennium Institute.

The tangible face of the renewable energy strategy is the Hebridean Renewable Energy Partnership, a public sector-led group, with the twin aims of economic development through sustainable renewable energy and building wider membership within the renewable energy industry and the local community.

Key Western Isles developments so far include:

• proposals from developers for up to 400 plus wind turbines
• plans for a number of small scale community wind energy projects
• wave and tidal energy feasibility studies for causeway devices
• a hydrogen laboratory at Lews Castle College 
• photovoltaic devices being used in schools
• a biomass anaerobic digester to be constructed
• various community and housing projects utilising ground/air heat pumps

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