Farmers are being offered a way to take back control of their energy costs through a new initiative launched in Aberdeenshire.
Water to Water, run by local entrepreneur Alex Gauntt, has developed a free-to-use calculator to help farmers work out how they could power their holdings using small-scale renewables and feed any surplus electricity into local communities.
Mr Gauntt, who previously worked on some of the UK’s first offshore wind farms, said the project was about giving producers more say over their future.
“Currently Britain is working to upgrade every rural connection to the National Grid – and they’re going to have to spend hundreds of millions of pounds in infrastructure,” he explained. “We are estimating that our future projects in Wales will cost between £1 million and £3m per farm, and we can produce more electricity on those farms locally than will actually be coming from the grid.”
The firm is using lessons from two trial sites, HydroGlen in Aberdeenshire and HydroGlyn in Wales, to inform plans for 120 microgrids across the UK by 2040.
Mr Gauntt added: “Every time a turbine blade turns it’s producing free electrons; every time the sun shines that’s free electrons. But our electricity prices keep going up – so our system is broken.
“The National Grid was constructed in the 1940s, then we privatised everything. We created an incredibly complex market. Why don’t we bring it back to basics? Why shouldn’t the people who feed us – the people whose margins are squeezed – produce our energy?”
He pointed out that community energy has deep roots, with the first wind turbine documented 1500 years ago in Persia to mill wheat. “It was all community owned, and it was a hub. Somehow we have moved away from that to see wind compete with oil and gas business models on their football field. We need to have a revolution in terms of community empowerment,” he said.
At Glensaugh Farm in Fettercairn, where the James Hutton Institute is developing the HydroGlen project, development officer Niamh Carr said the model was already showing promise.
Glensaugh, a 1000-hectare livestock farm, aims to be fully energy self-sufficient by the first half of 2026.
“This is about producing, utilising and storing energy, all on the farm. The project will aim to produce 100% of the energy required,” Ms Carr explained. “The scale of the opportunity here is huge. There are 50,000 farms in Scotland, and 900,000 people living in rural areas. This is the alternative to big renewables – especially for communities who are off the grid. It’s a pathway to energy independence and reducing the risk of fuel poverty.
“There is a place for large developments, but small, localised, rural renewable energy projects are key for farmers and rural communities to be in control of their energy generation and supply, and see the benefits in real time.”
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