Wealthy landowners are making millions from Scottish wind farms. You’re subsidising them

Wealthy landowners including a Swedish aristocrat, the family of a former prime minister and a Tory donor are earning millions in rent from wind farms which are subsidised by the public’s energy bills, The Ferret can reveal.

Our latest investigation found the financial rewards of Scotland’s energy transition are being unevenly distributed through land ownership – flowing to the descendants of Scotland’s landed gentry, investment firms, and multimillionaires. 

The money earned by landowners often dwarfs the payments that wind farm developers make to local communities. The Scottish Government recommends these ‘community benefit’ payments are made as part of being a “good neighbour” to areas that host turbines for decades, but communities receive a fraction of the income enjoyed by estate owners.

In one extreme case a landowner received £11m in rental income from a wind project last year – 23 times more than was paid to the local community.

Our analysis traced the estates hosting onshore wind projects backed by the UK Government’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) subsidy scheme, which supports renewable electricity generation through levies on consumer energy bills.

Experts said Scotland’s “hugely concentrated pattern of landownership” means there is a “real risk” that the wealth from the country’s renewable energy revolution will flow to a small number of private estates. 

The Scottish Greens claimed successive governments had failed to tackle the “chronically unequal distribution of this country’s land and wealth”. Former leader Patrick Harvie called for more “public or community ownership” of renewables, and the land that hosts them.

Wind itself is an abundant energy source, but the infrastructure that converts it into electricity must be built on a finite stock of land, usually rented to developers by private landowners. Globally, the UK is among the highest-ranked countries for onshore wind power potential, with much of that advantage clustered in Scotland’s Highlands, islands, and coastal regions. 

At the same time, Scotland’s land ownership is among the most concentrated in Europe. According to a 2025 report produced by the website Who Owns Scotland, just 408 landowners own half of the country’s privately held rural land. By contrast, less than three per cent of Scotland’s land is under community ownership, while nine per cent is owned by the state, via Forestry and Land Scotland, a public body.

Most Scottish wind farms provide payments to locals, known as community benefits, to compensate for the disruption caused during construction and impacts on landscapes that soaring turbines have. These payments are voluntary, but considered best-practice by the Scottish Government.

However, our analysis indicates these communities receive payments on a scale far smaller than those made to landowners. The Ferret combined data from the Low Carbon Contracts Company, the Who Owns Scotland land map, Global Energy Monitor, and the Companies House business registry, to calculate how much landowners were making in rent from wind farms backed by the CfD scheme.

Some of those benefiting hold hereditary titles. The estate of Colin Campbell, 7th Earl Cawdor, hosts the Tom Nan Clach wind farm, near Inverness. Middle Muir wind farm, near Biggar, sits on land owned by Douglas and Angus Estate, associated with the Earls of Home – a title once held by prime minister Alec Douglas-Home and an aristocratic family with roots back to the 8th century. Douglas and Angus Estate received £904,000 in rental income from OnPathEnergy last year for hosting the 15 turbines that make up Middle Muir.

By contrast, the local community received £255,000 in benefit payments. An estate spokesperson said these community payments supported local projects, including a new energy-efficient golf clubhouse, a 3.3km footpath, and a community art project at a school.

Modern financial institutions and high-net-worth investors also appear in the data. Among them is asset manager Gresham House. Specialising in managing forestry and energy investment funds, it recently became Scotland’s second largest private landowner.

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The FerretPaul Dobson

Its land overlaps with two CfD-backed projects, Sneddon Law and Solwaybank, where rental payments are shared among landowners. At Solwaybank, between Lockerbie and Langholm, around 6.7 per cent of revenue is paid to landowners, while community benefit contributions make up a mere 0.58 per cent. 

Other landlords benefitting include Swedish aristocrat Baron Johan Koskull, and Anglo-Irish financier, Tory donor, and multimillionaire, Christopher Moran. Moran’s Glenfiddich estate, in Moray, hosts EDF’s Dorenell Windfarm. In London, he owns several properties, including the Chelsea Cloisters apartment block and Crosby Moran Hall. He has also managed the Conservative party’s real-estate arm, C&UCO properties. 

Koskull is the owner of Enga Ltd, which hosts the Kype Muir wind farm in South Lanarkshire. He is the scion of the Swedish branch of a European dynasty and lives on a sprawling estate in southern Sweden. In 2024, Kype Muir paid out £1.79m to its three turbine hosts, with the majority of these turbines located on land linked to Koskull.

"If the community is going to have long-term stability and resiliency, they need to own the land.” — Josh Doble, Community Land Scotland

A representative of Goldcrest Land and Forestry Group, which manages Kype Forest on behalf of Koskull, said the wind farm “sterilise[d] a large area of land, that was previously timber producing forestry”, adding that “[this] conversion should be taken into account in any calculations.”

For Simon Cleary, energy transition director at economic consultancy Biggar Economics, the income landowners receive is money earned for controlling a scarce resource, rather than for providing any extra work or investment, or essentially “economic rent”. The land market for onshore wind is constrained by a number of factors: proximity to housing, access to the grid, and wind speeds, which vary significantly because of Scotland’s hilly topography,” he said, arguing that landowners can leverage this scarcity to push up the rents they receive from wind developers. 

Using economic data from several mid-to-large wind farm developers, Cleary calculated the average distribution of revenue between operators, communities and landowners. He found that landowners often claim around eight per cent of revenues – equivalent to what developers take home in profits, combined with what they should be paying out in community benefits. That share can rise to as much as 15 per cent over a project’s 20 to 25-year lifespan.

Unlike community benefits, these rental payments tend to be tied to overall revenue. If a wind farm has a more profitable year, so does the landowner. Cleary sees this as a “red flag” for economic rents.

The mechanics of these agreements were made visible through a court dispute involving EDF’s Dorenell Windfarm subsidiary and Christopher Moran. Dorenell is one of the largest onshore windfarms in Scotland, with 59 turbines. Among Scottish onshore wind sites, it has been the greatest beneficiary of the CfD scheme. 

The case notes show Moran was promised a fixed baseline lease of £6m per year – a little over £100,000 per turbine. The actual rent paid is calculated as a percentage of various income streams, including CfD payments, electricity sales, and income received for turning off a windfarm when the grid is congested and can’t handle the electricity it generates. The total received annually by Moran grew from roughly £8.5m in 2023, to £11m in 2025. 

The land rents paid to Moran represent 23 times the £464,625 paid to communities in 2025 – which is already below the level that the Scottish Government says projects should pay. Cleary argued that public land could be used to push back against rising rents. Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), which manages the national forest estate, currently hosts 27 operational wind farms – around 14 per cent of Scotland’s installed onshore wind capacity. By undercutting private landowners, FLS could force down land rents, Cleary claimed.

However, FLS told The Ferret it is required to secure “best value for the taxpayer”, which in practice usually means charging market rates for leases. Further action would require a shift in policy at Holyrood, the public body said, adding: “All lease income generated by FLS from windfarms is reinvested into offsetting costs associated with the sustainable management of the national forest and land for climate, nature, people and the economy.”

"If a wind farm has a more profitable year, so does the landowner." — Simon Cleary, Biggar Economics

Josh Doble, from Community Land Scotland, argued it is not enough to tinker with community benefits and the size of lease payments. The deeper issue, he claimed, lies in understanding who owns land and how that shapes power. “If the community is going to have long-term stability and resiliency, they need to own the land,” he said. “Renewable energy projects come and go. The ownership of the land is the finite asset. That’s why private landowners want to hold on to it so tightly and why communities need to get their hands on it.”

Liam Hainey from the Our Power campaign, which was recently set up to push for Scots to have a greater stake in the energy system, said:. "The incoming Scottish Government has significant powers at its disposal to address this fundamental imbalance and it can start by giving more communities the chance to own energy projects.”

Anna Gardiner, senior policy adviser for Scottish Land & Estates, which represents Scotland's landowners, argued that lease payments reflected the long-term impacts wind farms can have on rural land use, including restrictions on forestry and future development options.

She said: “Any landowner, whether they are a crofter, a community group, a company, or an individual, would expect reasonable compensation to be paid if they enter into a long-term contract with an energy company. 

Noting that developers’ returns are heavily shaped by government policy, particularly CfD strike prices, Gardiner added: “We all agree on the need for reduced carbon emissions and greater energy security in Scotland, and that there is more we can do to capture the value of our energy abundance. Rural businesses are at the heart of efforts to achieve this, and are providing significant benefits to local communities.”

All individuals and estates named in this story have been contacted for comment.