List of wind farm owners and funding they have received: EIR release

Information requested

• Please provide me with a breakdown of the owner of every wind farm in Scotland, along with where the company’s headquarters are based in the world, by country.
• Additionally, please may you tell me how much Scottish Government funding each wind farm has received in 2024. May you break down that Scottish Government funding by type of funding, ie, what scheme it falls under.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Please provide me with a breakdown of the owner of every wind farm in Scotland, along with where the company’s headquarters are based in the world, by country.

The Scottish Government does not hold or collate any information relating to wind farm owners or the registered address of the company’s headquarters in Scotland.

The information you have requested is available on the UK Government’s Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD) which tracks the progress of UK renewable electricity projects. Each project in the database lists an operator or applicant.

Also Companies House is the executive agency of the UK Government that maintains the register of companies, employs the company registrars and is responsible for incorporating all forms of companies in the United Kingdom.

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. The reason why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.

Additionally, please may you tell me how much Scottish Government funding each wind farm has received in 2024. May you break down that Scottish Government funding by type of funding, ie, what scheme it falls under.

The Scottish Government do not design, develop, commission, or maintain electricity generation assets, as this is provided by the private sector. However, it may be helpful to outline Scottish Ministers are responsible for approving applications to build, operate or modify onshore electricity generating stations with capacities exceeding 50 megawatts (MW), whilst applications concerning capacities of 50MW or less are approved by the relevant local planning authority. - Scottish Government - Energy Consents Unit.

I have carried out a search of the Scottish Government payments system and have found no payments made to any wind farms in 2024.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The reason why that exception applies is explained in the Annex to this letter.

However, you may wish to contact Enterprise Agencies directly, who may be able to help you, for any information they hold on their funding.

Our Funding Approvals | Highlands and Islands Enterprise | HIE
SOSE Grant Awards information
Accessing our information - spending and accounts | Scottish Enterprise

Annex

Information already available

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, information already available, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format, and this letter contains the relevant links to access this information. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.

The Scottish Government does not have the information

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information you have requested, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.