Community Energy Projects 2012 Impact Survey

Community Energy Projects – 2012 Impact Survey

Introduction

This study focuses on the social impacts of community owned renewable energyprojects supported by Community Energy Scotland, and looks to use survey findings for reporting on the performance of this organisation with reference to their core values.

The report will be structured as follows:

• Outline of the main aims
• A brief discussion of the background to the study, including:
• Context
• Community Energy Scotland as an organisation
• Impact assessment as an area of study
• Community Energy Scotland and social impact assessment
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion
• Survey Improvements
• Recommendations
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Appendix

Aims

This paper will aim to meet a number of objectives as outlined below:

• Clearly convey the context and relevant background information related to the area
• Present the data gathered from community groups
• Discuss this data with regards to the core values of Community Energy Scotland
• Contribute, though recommendations made as a result of analysis of survey results, to a social impact assessment framework for Community Energy Scotland as an organisation

Context

Community owned renewable energy projects are on the increase in Scotland, with the targets set in the Government’s ‘2020 Routemap for Renewable Energy’ for locally-owned renewable energy projects (Scottish Government, 2011), and the availability of funding and support networks throughout the country encouraging more communities to engage in renewable energy schemes.

Renewable energy schemes have been shown to have clear benefits for the communities they are based in, but whilst an increase in financial income for a community or reduced environmental damage as a result of cleaner energy technology being used can be straightforward to quantify and convey, social impacts are often harder to present in this manner.

Community Energy Scotland(CES) aim to support community based renewable energy developments through the provision of funding and practical help, and as such the capability to report on the environmental, economic and social impacts of their work is essential. The ability to show the benefits of community owned renewable energy projects is fundamental in getting more people involved in renewable energy, securing future provision of funding and support for the sector, and also demonstrating the organisation is delivering on core values.

This report will consider the background of both CES and social impact assessment, and will go on to discuss the social impact survey carried out of a sample of community based renewable energy projects support by CES, with a view to reporting on CES’s delivery on core values, and contributing to a more long term social impact assessment framework.

Background

Community Energy Scotland

Community Energy Scotland, originally Highlands and Islands Community Energy Company (HICEC, previously a subsidiary of Highland and Islands Enterprise), became an independent Scottish charity in 2008, in response to the growing sustainable development agenda in Scotland. Initially CES covered only the Highlands of Scotland, but this has since been extended to the whole of Scotland. CES assist renewable energy projects developed by community groups through the provision of advice and financial support, with this support being delivered in a number of ways.

The aim of the organisation is to deliver comprehensive and independent support to communities involved in projects such as energy reduction or energy generation schemes for as long as is necessary. They also aim to provide technical advice regarding the installation and maintenance of renewable energy technology such as pellet burners, wind turbines, and hydro schemes.

Further to this, CES delivers numerous service contracts such as the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme Loan Fund (CARES), which ‘provides loans towards the high risk, pre-planning consent stages of renewable energy projects which have significant community engagement and benefit’ (Scottish Government, 2011), and the Big Lottery’s Growing Community Assets Fund (GCA), which aims to enable ‘communities to have more control and influence over their own future through owning physical assets’ (Big Lottery Fund, 2010).

CES also represents the members and community organisations it is involved with at policy level, and works to keep the notion of community energy at the forefront of organisations such as National Grid and the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM). This work is carried out in order to ensure the ‘policies and incentives are in place to allow community energy to flourish’ (CES, 2012).

Finally, CES facilitates networking between member organisations, allowing them to share knowledge and connect with other community groups who have or are in the process of developing community energy projects.

CES looks to provide an appropriate level of intervention, that is operating under the understanding that once a community group has received the necessary support to get a renewable energy project up and running, the communities then require a smaller level of intervention in order to progress on from this point.

From these objectives, it can be seen that CES strives to empower communities through the utilisation of renewable energy projects. This concept is supported by Hoffman & High-Pippert (2005) when they talk of community energy projects building social capital, which is defined as the ‘social networks, norms, and trust that enable citizens to work together for shared objectives’ (pg. 389). Mulugetta (2010) also discusses the idea of energy projects as a way of empowering communities, suggesting that these projects can develop community capacity, enabling engagement between individuals in the community, creating a platform for views to be expressed, and creating opportunities for communities to develop the skills necessary for them to become stronger, more resilient, and more self reliant.

Impact Measurement

Impact measurement techniques are useful when attempting to show the benefits of work done, which as mentioned previously is a vital process when justifying the continuation and development of this work. This section will take a more in depth look at some of the techniques available for assessing social impact.

According to the International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA), impact assessment can be described as:

‘the processes of analysing, monitoring and managing the intended and unintended social consequences, both positive and negative, of planned interventions and any social change processes invoked by those interventions’ (IAIA, 2005)

Or more simply:

‘[impact assessment] is the process of identifying the future consequences of a current or proposed action’ (IAIA, 2012)

Impact measurement is an important part of reporting, allowing organisations to show that their work has made a difference, and as the Development Trusts Association points out, can provide ‘useful supporting evidence when applying for funding or contracts or complying with funding requirements’ (DTA, 2009).

On a local scale, replacing older fossil fuel technologies with cleaner, more efficient renewable energy schemes can have clear environmental and economic impacts, including a reduction in environmentally damaging emissions, savings made through use of cheaper fuels or more efficient insulation, or income being generated for the local community by larger scale projects. Recording of these impacts is generally done through thoroughly tested and well known techniques, based around figures gathered through monitoring. For instance, the environmental impact of replacing inefficient gas central heating with a wood pellet burner can be clearly monitored through the CO2 emissions, with the figures produced through monitoring allowing the benefits to be clearly communicated. Similarly, improving the insulation of a building and comparing the expenditure on heating before and after the work is done allows for the concise measurement and presentation of the economic impacts.

However, when it comes to the social impacts of renewable energy projects the techniques for recording and presenting the changes are not so clear. Whilst the social impacts, such as the improvement of the general standard of a facility or the development of new skills within the community, are often clear, it is can be difficult to quantify and report on these impacts in a consistent manner. Various techniques are available (and some will be looked at briefly further on in this section), but as yet none appear to be universally applicable to every community’s situation, as Rogers (2008) suggests ‘social phenomena can be highly context dependent’.

Social Impact Assessment

Past research in the area has highlighted the problems with trying to apply standard impact measurement techniques to social impacts. For example, when assessing financial impacts the boundaries of what is to be measured and the manner of this measurement is much clearer, when the price of a good or service can be ascertained, or the amount of money being saved can be calculated. But trying to measure the social ‘value’ of a good, service, and so on is more problematic as these aspects often have no numeric figure attached. As the DTA suggests, ‘price is not the same as value: it is a proxy for value’ (DTA, 2009). In short, it is difficult to quantify social impacts, and yet this is so often the form of reporting that organisations look or are asked for.

A number of social accounting and audit methods have been devised, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Techniques such as Social Return on Investment (SRoI) have been suggested as suitable for assessing social impacts.According to new economic foundation (NEF), SRoI is a:

‘participative method for comparing the value of social, environmental and economic benefit created by an organisation/initiative with the investment needed to create that value’ (NEF, 2012).

SRoI can be used to provide a quantitative approach to assessing social impacts through application of the previously mentioned financial proxies, applying monetary values to impacts which do not generally have a market value. According to NEF, SRoI can provide a ‘robust method for a comprehensive assessment of an organisation’s outcomes’ (NEF, 2012), but the technique is often regarded as time and money intensive, whilst also requiring a high level of knowledge, and a large amount of staff time.

Another popular method for capturing social impacts is that of Social Accounting and Audit (SAA). This process involves an organisation reporting back on their performance when considered in terms of the organisation’s objectives. SAA covers a wide range of impact and performance issues, and can be combined with other impact assessment tools, but again this method is expensive and time consuming, also requiring a considerable degree of background knowledge/training.

Community Energy Scotland and Social Impact Assessment

The main aim of this study was to contribute to the development of a social impact assessment framework which allows CES to report on delivery of their core values of:

• Confidence
• Resilience
• Wealth
• Environmental Impact and Awareness

These core values were decided on through discussion with the CEO of Community Energy Scotland, and provided the structure for data gathering and the report writing. It has become apparent that CES must look to report on the social impacts of the projects they have supported in a consistent and structured manner, with this report aiming to be a starting point for this framework, as well as providing information on the social impacts so far seen by communities.

Methodology

Survey Design

Separate surveys were created for facility based projects (energy projects based in facilities such as community hall, leisure centres etc) and revenue based projects (energy projects designed to generate income for a community). This was due to the different data which could be gathered from each type of project, with the revenue generating projects offering a chance to collect different information about the use of the income generated. Respondents were asked to fill out the survey most suited to their project, or both surveys if their community group has been involved with revenue generating and facility based renewable energy projects.

The survey was designed to gather quantitative data which would be complimented by a number of qualitative questions. As mentioned previously, the information asked for would allow CES to report on delivery on their core values, with the question split into the appropriate categories of confidence, resilience, wealth, and environmental impact and awareness.

The list of questions and statements which contacts were asked to respond to was compiled largely through research of the development plans and appraisal documents produced by the community groups involved, as well as through academic and peer reviewed papers concerned with the field of social impact research (Aiken, 2011; Mulugetta, 2010; Rogers, 2008; van der Horst, 2008; Walker, 2007), and consideration of the core values. This background reading allowed common areas of social impact to be identified, with these areas then split down further into specific questions, and categorised according to the core value they related to.

The quantitative questions ask respondents to indicate their view on matters relating to social impacts on 5 point Likert scales. As respondents were likely to be from a broad range of backgrounds it was important to design questions which were understandable and accessible for everyone, whilst still drawing out important information regarding social impacts. This response method was chosen in order to be able to clearly represent the social impacts communities had experienced, with a Likert scale being decided upon as the most suitable way to quantify responses. Previous work such as Musall (2011) employed a similar technique when looking to gather community opinion on renewable energy. This technique of collecting information allows for a ‘snapshot’ of a large number of community energy projects at a certain point in time to be gathered. Comment boxes were also available where appropriate allowing respondents to put additional information in their own words.

Sample Selection

The survey used the online survey tool Survey Monkey, and was sent to 195projects, with an opening date of11th July 2012, and a closing date of 22nd July 2012, with a reminder sent on 19th July. In total for both types of surveys there were 77 responses started. For the facility based projects 56 out of 67 respondents completed the survey, and for the revenue based projects 7 out of the 10 respondents completed the survey, giving the total response rate for completed surveys as 63 or 32%. Incomplete survey responses were not included in the final results.

Where possible the covering letter and link to the surveys were distributed through the relevant regional development officers as this meant the community groups were receiving the survey from a familiar source, although there were some areas which required to be contacted directly.

The project database of CES was consulted in order to select a survey sample. Projects were firstly filtered by both the approval date for funding and the project status, allowing only those projects which were in an advanced or completed state to be considered. It was decided that these projects were suitable as those in the very early stages of planning or construction were less likely to have experienced the broader range of social impacts that community energy projects could bring. The sample was also selected in order to cover a wide geographic area and a mixture of renewable technologies. Once a list which gave consideration to all these aspects had been compiled it was then sifted for any duplicate contact details, where a community may have more than one project managed by the same person, and these were removed.Development officers were also invited to highlight where contact details had changed, become obsolete, and to add additional contact details for projects within their area which they considered suitable for the survey

Results

The results of the survey have been presented on a question by question basis.

Facility Based Projects Survey

Section A: About You

Type of organisation

(Figure 1)

For facility based projects it can be seen that the most common organisation type was charity (76.8%), with community committees (33.9%) and private company limited by guarantee and social enterprise (both 17.9%) the next most prevalent.

Local Authority Area

(Figure 2)

Highland and Moray provided the most respondents (21.4% and 12.5% respectively). The grey shaded area represents the respondents from 18 other areas amalgamated. Of the 56 respondents, the largest percentage came from rural areas of less than 3000 people (62.5%), with over 75% of total respondents coming from rural areas in general (Figure 3).

(Figure 3)

Development time

(Figure 4)

Figure 4 shows that 44 of the 56 projects represented by the survey have been in development for 1-5 years, with 6 each being in development for either under 1 year, or over 5 years.49 of the 56 projects have been completed (87.5%).

Technology used

(Figure 5)

Energy efficiency (25%) and wood pellet (25%) were the most common energy projects, followed by micro wind (17.9%). In addition to this, 5 of the 9 ‘Other’ responses mentioned improvements in insulation which could also be considered energy efficiency measures. If these were to be included, energy efficiency projects would account for 34% of the responses. A full list of the ‘Other’ responses is included in Appendix 1.