Many TSOs pay money to communities present in the vicinity of new grid infrastructure. These payments (also known as community compensation/gain/benefit) are seen as a way to supply an “appropriate benefit” to communities that host grid infrastructure, and to increase local acceptance of a project. At the same time, such payments have been criticised as a tool to ‘buy’ local community support. Finding the right, legitimate approach to such payments is therefore of high importance.
This brochure, looks to act as a knowledge-sharing tool by presenting six case studies of community payments from across Europe. Five of these case studies are from the electricity grid sector (Ireland, Germany, France and Italy) with a sixth coming from the wind energy sector in Scotland. By creating a common understanding of how TSOs and energy companies across Europe are designing and implementing their community payment mechanisms, we hope to improve practices.
This is the second version of this brochure, building upon the original that was published in 2016. This version includes updates of the original case studies and adds some additional examples of community payment mechanisms from France and Germany. It also includes a summary of the different practices and some potential positives and negatives of the practices presented. A project’s inclusion in this brochure does not indicate an endorsement of the project or the specific community payment type used.