The Highlands and Islands Community Energy Company (HICEC) has just issued the latest edition of its newsletter - Community Energy News - with details of just some of the community schemes in the Highlands and Islands it has assisted.

The front page features a picture of Livister Youth Centre in Whalsay, Shetland. This is the latest community centre to install a wind turbine under the Wind2Heat scheme.

There's also a progress report on the development of the new housing scheme at Glenshellach, Oban - where West Highland Housing Association are building 44 houses with a district heating system. This burns waste wood from Argyll forests and distributes hot water for household use, as well as for their underfloor heating and radiators. When complete, it will be one of the UK’s largest wood-burning district heating schemes.

Community Energy News has stories from various other projects - from the wind turbine installed at Tong Primary School in the Western Isles - to the new swimming pool at Campbeltown heated by woodfuel, using waste wood from a local sawmill and unwanted timber from a local forest.

Other reports feature Altnacriche Outdoor Centre near Aviemore (pictured) with its ground source heat pump and solar panels, Kirkwall Squash Club’s wind turbine, the Argyll Solar Car Challenge, the Park Ecovillage at Findhorn, and collaboration between Colonsay, Jura and Islay to develop joint community energy projects. And we have the news from Gigha of their community windfarm’s net profit of £100,000 from its first year of operation.

Link to Community Energy News (pdf)

Link to HICEC web pages