| | Winds of Change |
| | |
| 1 | | High on a blustery hill right in the middle of Scotland sits a towering wind turbine, |
| | whipping up 2.5 megawatts of energy a year for the national grid. There are |
| | another 14 white giants in the same wind farm, but look closely and you'll see |
| | this one is different: adorned with marker-pen doodles and signatures all round |
| | its base. It is a people's turbine and its power belongs wholly to the community of |
| | Fintry. |
| 2 | | The 300-plus households in this rural village are set fair on their course to |
| | become a zero-carbon, zero-waste community. When the wind-farm developer |
| | came knocking at the door of the community council seeking backing for its new |
| | development, Fintry rejected the standard benefits package in favour of far |
| | bigger aspirations. It took four years of negotiation but they pulled it off. |
| 3 | | The 5 the deal is that the village gets to use none of its own renewable |
| | power: the structure of the national grid makes that impossible. What the wind |
| | turbine grinds out for the 550 villagers is cash. The money all goes into the Fintry |
| | Development Trust (FDT), set up to reduce the village's energy use and carbon |
| | emissions. |
| 4 | | They hired an energy adviser to help residents shift to more sustainable |
| | heating methods and have also helped fund a new biomass boiler for the sports |
| | club. But FDT is also turning its attention to other issues. For instance, a |
| | community car club has been launched. Even before it was fully operational three |
| | villagers ditched their second cars in favour of the club. Says one villager: "A |
| | community is a good level at which to tackle climate change. If your neighbour is |
| | putting in a geothermal pump, it makes it much easier for you to follow – you are |
| | not exposing yourself to the risk of something new and scary." |
| | |
| | Country Living, 2011 |
