Our Community
Engagement approach
At FuturEnergy Ireland, we believe in speaking to the local community right from earliest stage and continuing this engagement throughout the entire lifetime of the wind farm.
On the ground, we have dedicated Community Liaison Officers (CLOs) who are there to provide information and answer your queries throughout the lifetime of a project. Our CLOs call to houses in the local area, distributing newsletters and making sure you get the information that you need.
This is particularly important in the 12-24 month period prior to a planning application being made, and also in the run-up to and during construction.
Our commitment to you
- Dedicated project Community Liaison Officers who you can contact directly via email or telephone. We welcome your feedback and comments
- Regular newsletter updates
- A dedicated project website
- The opportunity to meet a team specialist or consultant relevant to your query
- An information webinar with a Q&A session
- A full project brochure
- A Virtual Exhibition linked to the project website
- A Community Engagement Clinic
Supporting a local renewable energy project comes with many benefits for a community
Community Benefit Fund
A FuturEnergy Ireland wind farm has the potential to bring significant positive benefits to local communities.
The project will support local employment and businesses, it will contribute annual rates to the local authority and it will provide a Community Benefit Fund in line with the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS).
RESS is Ireland's main policy initiative to deliver on the Government’s Climate Action Plan via new green energy. An important feature of RESS is that all projects must establish a Community Benefit Fund to be used for the wider environmental, social and economic wellbeing of the local community.
Those living in closest proximity to the project should be priority beneficiaries and that is why some of the fund is designated for Near Neighbour payments. However, it is important that broader community benefits apply as well.
Community Benefit Fund
The scheme mandates all RESS projects to establish a Community Benefit Fund worth €2 per MWh (megawatt hour) of generated electricity for any future wind farm.
Therefore, the project owners are required to contribute €2 per MWh annually into a community fund for the RESS contract period i.e. the first 15 years of operation.
The total fund per annum will depend on the final power output of a successful project.
What does your community need?
When it comes to the Community Benefit Fund, communities will be at the centre of the decision-making process, which gives them the opportunity to develop a strategy to maximise the benefits.
One particular focus of the fund is to support local initiatives that align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals such as home and community-hall retrofits, pollinator farms, cycling paths, educational material and scholarships, and sports club activities.
Local rates contributions
A FuturEnergy Ireland wind farm has the potential to make a substantial contribution in annual rates payments to the revelant county council, an important contributor in exchequer funding.
This would have a positive impact on the development of local infrastructure such as roads, public transport, lighting, street cleaning, libraries, fire services, public amenities and employment.
Education
FuturEnergy Ireland works with S.T.E.A.M. Education by sponsoring their ‘Climate in a Box’ lessons for national schools in areas close to our wind farms.
This series of five lessons, given by the class teacher, are a fun, interactive way to learn about climate change, sustainability and how we can all be more ecofriendly.
We are also running a pilot programme in areas of Cork where we have live projects, whereby our Community Liaison Officers go into secondary schools and run a ‘Renewable Energy & You’ session, especially for Transition Year students.
If you are interested in taking part in this pilot, please contact community@futurenergyireland.ie
Have your say
It’s important for us to be good neighbours and we take this responsibility very seriously. We welcome feedback from communities local to our projects.
Please visit the dedicated website for your project and you will find the contact details of the local Community Liaison Officer and full details of where to go to find information, get queries answered and meet the team.
