Green visions inspiring communities
Shaun Milne meets Lindsay Mcquade, CEO of Scottishpower Renewables, and hears about the firm’s efforts to engage and support the public in the collective fight against climate change
In the months leading up to COP26 an image of a giant panda was projected on the towering Scottishpower House building in Glasgow. It was a real head-turner and talking point which is – of course – the point. We should all be discussing climate change.
But having a massive blackand-white bear looming over you isn’t what’s strange here. The real peculiarity is the fact that the famous conservation charity WWF has chosen to partner with a massive utilities company at all.
“Historically, you wouldn’t ever have paired us together, energy companies haven’t traditionally been seen as part of the solution in terms of climate change. But now there’s so many ways we can work together and that’s in no small part down to the transformation we’ve undertaken as an organisation,” says Scottishpower Renewables chief executive Lindsay Mcquade. “The focus we’ve got on green energy, the vision we’ve got around reaching net-zero and carbon neutrality – WWF share that because we both want a sustainable future. This agreement shows how far we’ve come as a company that we are now seen by them as a leader in decarbonisation. Together we can be a very powerful voice.”
As the first UK provider to generate all its energy through renewables, Scottishpower has pioneered onshore and offshore wind thanks in part to building such trust-driven relationships.
“We’ve worked with communities since the off,” Mcquade says. “There’s stories back to our earliest windfarms over in Argyll where we were talking about an access road, and the locals told us, ‘Oh no, you don’t want to put it there, that’s going to flood.’
“So, there’s a good to and fro of communication, but that’s with early engagement – you don’t just start, and we never seek to impose a windfarm on somebody – and there’s a lot of learning and a lot of good collaboration that can come from having that dialogue.”
That’s been reciprocated too. The company has made payments to date of an impressive £43m through voluntary community benefits.
Churches and community centres needing roof repairs, for example, or football teams needing new strips have been traditional staples.
In Kintyre, funding for a community shop with muchneeded Post Office facilities, and a new 4x4 vehicle for Galloway Mountain Rescue were supported. So too was Food Train in the Borders, aimed at feeding the elderly.
Those requests, though, like other conversations, are changing too. Mcquade explains: “Communities have started to speak to us, asking, ‘This net-zero thing, how do we get in on that?’”
“There’s been examples of where the money has been put to good use to support the design and development of eco-homes in Dumfries and Galloway, or installation of solar panels and local renewable generation of community facilities, and we’ve also created gardening hubs so you get this sustainable link of growing your own veg to sell it in the local shop, and it is that circular economy piece of supporting local business.
“Those are great things to see and the interest we get from local communities in figuring out how they can actually make a difference at a local level, and how do they play their part in the journey to net-zero has become probably one of the biggest conversations we’re having.”
It is the benefit most tangible to those communities adopting windfarms on their doorsteps, but the bigger prize is cleaner energy. None of which would be possible without the constantly improving technology pioneered in such places.
Take Whitelee Windfarm at Eaglesham, the largest onshore windfarm in the UK – a modern marvel of technology and nature existing side by side.
Some 800,000 people have now visited the site since it opened. Its trails are populated by runners, cyclists and dog walkers.
As such, it may be difficult to appreciate that it is also the centre of Scottishpower’s energy heart.
Mcquade explains: “Whitelee is the jewel in our crown, it’s the best advert we have, frankly. It feels more like a country park when you go to it, rather than a power station and having gone to old-school power stations, it does feel different. The sense of community is really palpable when you go up there as well.
“Whitelee is where we control all of our 40 onshore and offshore windfarms around the UK from, and we will be plugging in new assets as they come on as well. It’s our central operational hub, we’ve also got our visitor centre there and we’re also deploying new technologies there.
“We’re in the final throes of installing our major battery storage project and it’s soon to be complimented with our solar development and green hydrogen electrolyser as well.
“Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have been talking about solar and hydrogen up at Whitelee, but here we are today.”
By any measure, the sums being ploughed into projects like the zero-emission energy park here and beyond are huge. Between now and 2025, Mcquade expects the renewables business to plough in £3.7bn, which will go towards 8GW of energy in the pipeline from onshore, offshore, solar and battery. Scottishpower overall is on course to invest £10bn.
“The thing about energy is, we know we need it,” Mcquade adds. “And we know we’re going to need more of it, because we’re not necessarily going to have gas boilers and not petrol or diesel cars.”
It’s a long way from when she first started her career in 1999. Mcquade can still remember standing next to mountains of coal at Longannet and Cockenzie power stations.
“I’ve seen it all,” she says, “We’ve gone through a major transition. We’ve stepped away from coal, we’ve stepped out of gas, we’re now 100 per cent green in terms of our generation, and what’s really cool is we’re not just looking at wind generation for that.
“We’re now moving into solar because its price point has come down, and its production has improved as well, and we’re also looking at ways we can store that green energy.
“In Scotland, the wind doesn’t blow all the time, the rain doesn’t fall all the time – although it sometimes feels like it. The sun is definitely not there all the time either, but when it does come we want to be able to capture it and move that load around to suit how people use their energy.”
Mcquade describes renewables as being “mature” and “proven” technologies now, and how they are affordable in terms of access to innovation, and explains how that has shifted market and end user thinking.
“Consumers in the past were perhaps a bit more passive, they couldn’t tell what colour the electron was, or what the energy sources was whenever they switched on their kettle or charged their mobile phone or whatever else,” she says. “There wasn’t really the option of an electric vehicle,
“There’s a good to and fro of communication... and there’s a lot of learning and a lot of good collaboration that can come from having that dialogue”
there was active transport there always has been. But that awareness of the science of what the climate emergency is and what it means for future generations is something the consumer is now the most informed they have ever been.
“That puts pressure on the producers of goods and services that we all use and that in itself means all energy companies have had to think about that.
“I think the oil and gas sector has woken up to that. I think the awareness of what the climate emergency is has absolutely changed and they are coming to the party now.”
And for Mcquade, like many colleagues, the stakes in making that transition couldn’t be higher.
“You have to be positive, because to think in the opposite sense is too devastating,” she says.
“I’ve got an 11-year-old daughter and the idea that she’s not going to have the same experience or view of the world as I’ve grown up with is something I can’t stand as a parent, and – as a business leader as well – I need to play my part in trying to make that change.”
“COP26 is a unique opportunity for Scotland, the
UK, and Glasgow because it is on our doorstep, and it’s a unique opportunity for Scottishpower to be a loud voice in that conversation.
“This bringing together of influencers, of minds, of policy informers, of decision makers is critical. We can all be doing things in isolation, and we are, but every now and again to come together to galvanise that discussion, to ensure that we’re all going along in the same direction and to get that global appreciation of what the emergency is.
“It’s that jump off point – where are we going to be in 2030 – because we can’t wait. The IPCC reports have come out, we understand what the implications are for extreme weather, mass migration, the impacts on our oceans and our forests and our rainforests. What does that mean for our species and biodiversity, and what does that ultimately mean for humankind and future generations.
“My hope is that we come together, we create a vision of what that 2030’s outlook has to be, and we can work together to get there. We can’t put this decision off; we can’t keep postponing it. We need to start the action now.”