What next?

We are work­ing hard to secure fur­ther fund­ing for this excit­ing pro­ject. The fol­low­ing work is required to take it for­ward to full plan­ning application:

Bird Surveys

As the site is on the edge of the Firth of Forth Special Protection Area (SPA), a full year of orni­tho­logy sur­veys is required. These star­ted in April.

Wind resource assessment

An ini­tial three months of meas­ure­ment is has already been car­ried out, how­ever this is insuf­fi­cient for fin­an­ci­ers. Therefore we require funds for a fur­ther six to nine months mon­it­or­ing. The most cost effect­ive method will be to erect a tra­di­tional met mast (~50M).

Environmental Impact Assessment

Proximity to the SPA and World Heritage Site mean EIA will be required, includ­ing full assess­ment of land­scape and visual impact, eco­logy, and cul­tural her­it­age impact. Initial assess­ment of views of the tur­bine form Edinburgh’s pro­tec­ted view­points has already been car­ried out and show that the tur­bine is unlikely to be vis­ible from the old or new towns (with the pos­sible excep­tion of the lookout tower at Edinburgh Castle).

Flue gas emis­sions impact assessment

We need to carry out a flue gas emis­sions impact assess­ment in rela­tion to the pro­posed bio­mass energy plant in Leith.

Local con­sulta­tions

Pre-planning con­sulta­tion with each of the three affected local com­munit­ies (Leith, Portobello, Craigentinny/ Restalrig) will be required as part of the full EIA pro­cess. However, more extens­ive con­sulta­tions will be required to bring (and keep) local people on board, includ­ing for example pub­lic presentations/ Q&A ses­sions, web-based sur­veys, and a pub­lic ballot.

Planning Application

Preparation and sub­mis­sion of full plan­ning applic­a­tion and sup­port­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion to the require­ments of City of Edinburgh Council. This will cover:

• Environmental Statement
• Non-Technical Summary
• Planning Application
• Fees
• Advertisements

Grid con­nec­tion

Application for con­nec­tion to the national grid (this will be required whether the tur­bine sup­plies a local indus­trial user or not).

Securing pro­ject finance

Analysis of the wind data to pro­duce a wind yield report, plus nego­ti­ation with banks and applic­a­tions to other grant fun­ders to secure fin­ance for the build.

Legal work

• Drafting, nego­ti­at­ing and final­ising the site option agree­ment and lease attached to this;
• Drafting, nego­ti­at­ing and final­ising power pur­chase agreement;
• Setting up a joint ven­ture vehicle between PEDAL and Greener Leith to own and oper­ate the turbine.
• Negotiate tur­bine pro­cure­ment contract
• Negotiate tur­bine con­struc­tion contract

And through­out the pro­ject we will need:

Project Management

People to over­see con­sult­ants to ensure work is com­pleted to time, qual­ity and budget. This includes get­ting reg­u­lar updates from the con­sult­ants, mak­ing day-to-day decisions on how to pro­ceed, troubleshoot­ing, and report to the PEDAL and Greener Leith Board.

Liaison with key stake­hold­ers and com­munity consultation

This is essen­tial to ensure broad and timely sup­port for the pro­ject. The main stake­hold­ers are: the local com­munity, landowner and site oper­ator (Scottish Water and Stirling Water), elec­tri­city cus­tom­ers, fun­ders, the media, and local politicians.

We are plan­ning a detailed con­sulta­tion with all three affected com­munit­ies — Leith, Craigentinny and Portobello. This will use on-line media, surveys/polls, inform­a­tion at local events, and pub­lic meetings.