Although undoubtedly useful, IO studies have limitations. For example, while onshore wind developments currently typically have little in the way of backward linkage into the host region (since the technology is imported), they are often associated with significant income flows in the form of community benefits and, increasingly, returns to local ownership. These income flows are not captured appropriately in IO systems, but are in social accounting matrices (SAMs), which can identify the potentially significant impacts of such income flows on the local economy.28 Such models are capable of exploring the impacts of different levels and forms of community benefit payments and of alternative ownership models and so could be applied to a range of DG initiatives.