Scotland has the wind. Others get the profits

Paul Dobson writes on The Ferret website about an investment vehicle managed by JP Morgan and state-backed firms from France, Norway and China own Scottish wind farms which have paid tens of millions in dividends this decade. The question is whether Scotland can expand renewable energy while ensuring that substantially more of the economic value remains with Scottish communities and the public.

 

Scotland’s wind industry is booming. China and Wall Street are cashing in

China’s government and an investment vehicle based in the Cayman Islands are among a group of foreign owners whose Scottish wind farms have paid out more than £1bn to shareholders in recent years.

The figures come from a Ferret examination of five years of dividend payments reported in the annual accounts of some of Scotland’s biggest onshore wind projects.

They have been branded “extraordinary” by critics who claim wealth from our natural resources is “filling the pockets of distant private shareholders or other countries’ treasuries” while Scots miss out.

As we reported this year some communities across the country feel they are being short-changed by local wind farms, which are large infrastructure projects which can alter treasured landscapes for decades and cause disruption while being built.

But the renewable sector said it is a major contributor to the economy – supporting over “47,000 jobs” – and the overseas investment it attracted to the country was “delivering lasting value to the Scottish people”.

Our analysis identified 37 projects ultimately owned outside the UK which reported paying £1.15bn in dividends over five years. One of the biggest potential winners identified is IIF International Holdings LP, a Cayman Islands fund managed by the Wall Street banking giant, JP Morgan.

Fifteen wind farms we analysed listed the fund – which owns them through an Edinburgh-based subsidiary called Nadara – as their ultimate parent company.

Together they reported paying more than £450m in dividends over the five-year period. The biggest contributor was the 40-turbine Farr wind farm south of Inverness, which reported paying out almost £110m. Nadara is exploring plans to expand the site with another 10 turbines.

The identities of the investors in the IIF International fund are not made public because of rules in the Caymans, which is considered a corporate tax and secrecy haven. But they reportedly include investors from the US, the Middle East and Japan.

Nadara told The Ferret it has created “strong, lasting relationships” with communities near its turbines and increased its community benefit payments in 2025, alongside offering “shared ownership schemes”. “Nadara adopts a full-lifetime approach to community engagement to create long-term value for our communities as well as for our business,” a spokesperson said.

Developments owned by overseas governments also reported more than £400m in dividends during the five-year period.

Two wind farms owned or part-owned by the French state energy company EDF – Dorenell in Moray and Fallago Rig in the Borders, which it has a stake in alongside US investor Federated Hermes – paid out more than £250m.

Projects owned by Norway’s state-owned renewable company, Statkraft, reported £131m in dividends, while Sweden’s state-owned Vattenfall was in line to receive almost £13m from Clashindarroch in Aberdeenshire.

The Afton wind farm in East Ayrshire, owned by the Chinese government’s State Development and Investment Corporation, reported £26m in dividends. The same organisation ultimately owns the Benbrack wind farm in Dumfries and Galloway, which began generating electricity last year.

Calls for greater Scottish stake

Our analysis does not cover every major onshore wind farm in Scotland, because some do not publish separate company accounts. This includes those owned by major developers such as SSE, and ScottishPower – itself a subsidiary of the Spanish utility company Iberdrola.

Not all the cash paid out by individual projects will necessarily reach the ultimate shareholders. It often first passes through layers of holding companies, which may decide to reinvest it or use it to repay debt.

But the findings provide a snapshot of the money being generated by the onshore wind sector – and where some of it could be ending up – at a time when there are renewed calls for Scotland to take a much bigger stake in its renewable energy industry.

In May, a coalition of campaign groups and think tanks launched the Our Powercampaign, which is calling for action to keep more of the money generated by wind, solar and hydro power locally.

Liam Hainey, a spokesperson for the group, said Scots were currently being “shortchanged” with “too much wealth filling either the pockets of distant private shareholders or other countries’ treasuries”.

He added: “We urgently need action to ensure that more of the profits from the renewable sector stay in Scotland and benefit our communities which is why we’re calling on the Scottish Government to take a public stake in future projects and to do everything it can to support council and community ownership.”

The Scottish Government has supported community energy through its CARESscheme, which provides funding and advice to groups seeking to develop or have a stake in renewable projects.

It also launched a pilot scheme last year giving communities the first opportunity to lease and repower 10 wind farms on publicly owned land. Repowering involves replacing a project’s turbines at the end of their operational life.

Meanwhile, the UK Government’s clean energy investment company, GB Energy, published its Local Power Plan this year, which said it “refused to accept that the days when Britain owned things are in the past”.

It committed up to £1bn over three years to help more communities own local energy projects, which it claimed could become a “long-term engine for local economic growth and community wealth building”.

Part of the rationale for the plan was that community-owned energy projects have been found to deliver more for communities than the current model of ‘community benefit’ payments – where developers make voluntary payments to support local initiatives near their turbines.

The industry points out that community benefits are a “unique feature” of the renewable sector and claims  “no other industry has chosen to take such a positive role in our society”.

Communities receive £55m from community benefits from all Scottish onshore renewable projects per year. The Farr wind farm, ultimately owned by the IIF fund, paid out nearly £95m in 2023 alone.

One 2021 study found community-owned projects provide 34 times more money to communities than the average community benefit package. GB Energy also pointed to evidence that public support for the transition to cleaner energy increases when local people own projects and see their economic benefits firsthand.

But currently only around one per cent of Scotland’s onshore wind capacity is owned by communities. That lags far behind countries like Denmark, where, since 2008, developers have been required to offer communities at least a 20 per cent stake in new wind farms. In Germany, one study estimated that 40 per cent of renewable capacity is citizen-owned.

“There is nothing inevitable about a system where Scotland’s natural assets are controlled by overseas governments and multinational corporations,” the Scottish Greens MSP for the Highlands and Islands, Kristopher Leask, told The Ferret.

Leask, who worked for the charity Community Energy Scotland before being elected to parliament in May, added: “Scotland has an enormous renewable energy potential, but too often our communities are seeing the disruption without sharing in the rewards.

“If we stick to business as usual and an economy of extraction then we will look back in 20 years filled with regrets.”

That view was shared by Laurie Macfarlane, the co-director of think tank Future Economy Scotland. “The UK squandered our oil and gas wealth – we cannot repeat the same mistake with renewables,” he said. Macfarlane claimed it was “extraordinary” that £400m in dividends had flowed from projects owned by the French, Chinese, Swedish and Norwegian governments, “while the Scottish exchequer has received nothing”.

He added: “If the Scottish Government is serious about delivering a just transition, it must take bold steps to expand both public and community ownership of our renewable resources. The people of Scotland deserve a real stake in our energy future.”

But a spokesperson for Scottish Renewables, the body that represents the whole of the country’s green energy sector, argued it continued to attract “significant inward investment, delivering lasting value for the Scottish people, the economy and energy security”.

“Renewable energy supports more than 47,000 jobs in Scotland, creating opportunities for businesses and workers while helping to grow a strong domestic supply chain. These benefits are felt far beyond individual projects, bringing investment, skills and opportunities to communities across the country,” they continued.

“Continued investment in the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) and other support programmes, alongside the significant funding delivered locally by renewable energy projects [in community benefits], will help more communities and local authorities capture the benefits of Scotland’s renewable energy industry.”

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