The question of what the communities which host the drive for renewable energy can expect to get out of it will acquire greater prominence in the year ahead and both Scottish and UK governments must come up with plausible answers soon.
Meanwhile, they would be sensible to factor in the possibility that the green brick road leading to 2030 might not be as smooth as they hope once the public starts to put obstacles in its way.
That is another good reason for hedging bets and recognising that we are going to be dependent on existing infrastructure and energy sources for decades to come.
We should plan accordingly.
There are, as regularly demonstrated, limits to environmental altruism.
Being told that a wind farm on one’s doorstep or a pylon in the field next door should be welcomed in the interests of a greater, net zero good is not going to cut it.
Neither is the vague, long-term promise that green energy will lead to lower bills.
It is not just in America that there is a substantial audience for the populist message that all this green stuff has gone too far and represents a cost rather than a solution.
The best way to counter these sentiments is to advance with care and, specifically, respect the need to offer more immediate benefits to hard-pressed consumers.
Developments are going to be on a scale which is bound to attract opposition, sometimes for reasons that cannot be dismissed as “not in my backyard-ism”.
That is especially true when everyone knows corporate fortunes are being made by someone, somewhere out of these developments.
Politicians who support energy transition will start off gung-ho about what can be driven through.
Then they will run into the force of well-organised opposition, sometimes from their own constituents, and green ardour may start to cool.
There is no easy answer with which to address these scenarios but plenty of evidence to suggest that the acceptability of developments increases roughly in line with the tangible, demonstrable benefits on offer to the people most directly affected.
The most obviously attractive offer would take the form of lower energy bills.
This is particularly true in the north of Scotland where we are heading for what I believe should become an unsustainable paradox – as the centre of renewable energy generation but still with some of the highest bills in Britain.
You might call it the paradox of peripherality – useful for green generation, while dismissible when it comes to a fair deal on pricing.
A consultation is dragging on at present about zonal pricing, a concept which poses the question – should generators be required to charge lower prices where power is generated?
Octopus Energy, a retail supplier, has fuelled the debate by claiming that, on this basis, Scotland could have Europe’s cheapest electricity.
However, Scotland’s energy establishment is leading the opposition to any such notion. Scottish Power, SSE and the industry body, Scottish Renewables, are strongly opposed to zonal pricing, claiming that investment would take flight if there was an obligation to sell power more cheaply than elsewhere.
The Scottish Government is firmly on the fence.
But if community benefit is not to come through lower bills, how is it to come?
At present, there are plenty of ideas but no consensus – far less legislation which would impose duties on developers or open the door to communities doing the job themselves.
The latter, undoubtedly, is the most effective way of producing hard cash for communities if the capital can be raised.
Or there are variations on the same theme – like the Danish model of a community share in any commercial project.
But they all need statutory underpinning.
Perhaps light will be shed through another consultation launched last month by the Energy and Net Zero Committee of the House of Commons under the heading “Unlocking Community Energy at Scale”. The timing could not be better.
It raises questions like whether the energy market should be reformed to enable community generators to sell the electricity to local customers, “without the current barriers, and be properly remunerated for doing so”?
Or how about: “What are the regulatory solutions needed to minimise the high costs and long delays incurred in securing a grid connection for community energy projects?”.
At present there is no provision for prioritising community over commercial, even at the edges.
The consultation document also asks: “Should the local benefits of community energy projects be formally recognised as a material consideration in planning decisions?”.
Well, of course, they should is my straightforward answer.
These are big, important questions which have the potential to create a substantial community energy sector instead of the minuscule scale on which it exists at present.
But this will still only be a part of the overall solution. There is no single answer.
The worst option is what we have at present with “community benefit” defined as whatever can be negotiated with a massive, corporate entity.
The weaker the community, the more this is likely to yield.
Equally, in many places where wind farms sprout, there is little or no community – so should they pay nothing?
“Community benefit” has been treated as an optional extra which should not get in the way of the grand design.
Among the many challenges which stand in the way of energy transition, it would be prudent for governments to start taking it more seriously.
Otherwise, the question will come back to bite: “What are getting out of it?”
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