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Wind Farm Lease, what to watch out for?

M

McNabb

New User
We have been approached by a company wanting to lease some of our land for a possible wind farm development.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing that you would be willing to share? Any gotcha's or things to watch out for?

If you've done one of these wind farm leases, how has the experience been for you? If you had it to do over would you do it again?

Thank you
 
Just so you know that wind generators are noisy and they kill/injure wild birds such as eagles, hawks, etc.
 
there are some windmills just south of me. they need about 2-3 acres of land for each windmill, and an access road to get to them. they do pour a massive concrete footer for the tower to stand on. somewhere like 60 too 80 feet deep from what i hear. you need a good attorney to handle the contract.
 

Find out everybody else who is being offers and group hire a contract lawyer.
You will save money, make more money, have less liability and more peace of mind.
There are stories about green energy companies going bust when the subsidized rates are no longer paid. The obligations and liabilities involved with the green equipment defaults back to the land owner.
Can you dismantle a 4MW Vestas turbine ?
 
Here we go again, you ought of heard all the lies about windmills at our local meetings. You need a good county ordinances to cover every problem that a windmill will cause, have company post a multi million bond to cover any cost made by the windmill , roads tile water ways.. . Windmills need 1/2 to 1 acre. Windmills are no different than a hog , cattle , chicken, dairy, sheep, goat operation, or a oil well.Go look around Van Wert OH there are hundreds of wind mills in operation and more commimg soon.
 
A friend of mine had a company that
wanted to build there prototype windmill
on there farm, were going to have it up
and running in about a year and they
would get an amount of money in
electricity each month in exchange for
the using the site. Well a couple years
in still wasn't making power, and then a
few years later company went bankrupt
and the farm got stuck with the huge
200ft lattice tower about 50ft wide.
Doesn't sound terrible till you see the
15,000 dollar tax bill on the worthless
tower. Farmer finally ended up taking it
down themselves and despite getting the
scrap value it still cost them a fortune
to pay guys to torch it up which took
months. So beware and make sure your
covered from all angles
 
That wind farm is HUGE. Largest I've ever seen. It goes all the way to the Indiana State Line.
 
Well all i can say is that THEIR lease deal is NOT in your best interest just like everybody is finding out on their OIL and gas leases around here . MOST are now NOT receiving any payment as they are being told that they were over paid and and will receive NOTHING till the over payment has been made up . Plus with the way the oil and gas ind. is going i see a lot of these company going bankrupt and selling out to some NEW company that will be run by the same people as the old company and the land men will be back to try and get new leases signed for LESS money . Be vary weary when someone id dangling a dollar sign carrot over a deep hole you can not get out of and it will cost you in the end.
 
Go look at the one over by Fowler , last time I was over that way you started seeing them just after Monticello and they went all the way to the the hiway I took south from 24 to Rantoul.
 
To be honest I wouldn't lease the ground but would instead insist on selling it - if you don't want to sell then I wouldn't have anything to do with it. The huge amount of concrete that is poured makes "reclaiming" the land almost economically impossible after the wind power craze and the government subsidies go away in 10-20 years. It only makes financial sense for the company to bankrupt itself rather than follow through with any kind of "end of service" agreement that is written into the contract. Good chance at the end of the lease you'll be stuck with a massive concrete, steel & fiberglass structure that is dangerous to be near and horribly expensive to tear down.
 
Town or county, whichever your local taxing authority is will be just drooling over the chance to reclassify your
property as commercial, and raise the taxes.
 
We have a lease with a wind turbine company. Before signing, we joined with others
and had clear legal advice in all aspects of the lease. Do so, if only for your peace
of mind and to make sure you are content with the lease you are about to sign and
clearly understand all terms. We have had nothing but positive relations with the
company here, payments are in full and on time, most reasonable requests beyond those
in the lease are also complied with. There are many many false scenarios regarding
turbines on both sides of the story, I would recommend visiting an existing
leaseholder and experience the environment at the recommended setback, here, it is
600 meters, or 700 yards, and see if you are comfortable with it under different
conditions. From our experience, I can hear them under some conditions, but only if I
stop whatever I am doing and listen closely. Any other anecdotes about dead birds,
infrasound nosebleeds howling dogs and skittish horses have simply been proven false
in my experience. Exercise due diligence before any undertaking and you should be
fine. Ben
 
Heck I will take two then! Go so many hawks I can not keep chickens out and there are no more rabbits to hunt. Need a season on hawks.
 
As others have said don't walk, run away from this thing. 30 yrs from now the government is broke and all green energy subsidies are long
gone there will be a giant pile of scrap on your land. Then the county sends you a property tax bill would be adding insult to injury.
 
A family member farms under windmills and he loves them for their extra income. None are located close to his farmstead. The devil is in the details, so read the offer carefully, ask a lot of questions, counter offer, and remember that anything not in writing on the final agreement will never happen.

Some questions I would ask are:

What are the payments for: the leasing right; when construction begins; annually for the life of the unit, at the end of the units life.
What specific locations do they want to build on?
What happens to the topsoil that is removed?
Minimum setback from farmsteads, line fences, roads, neighbor's houses and other windmills?
Do you have the right to reject any locations you don't like?
What are your rights if the company builds on your neighbor's property and not on yours?
Are annual payments fixed or indexed?

At the end of the windmill's life:
Will all the equipment, foundations, access driveways, and the buried cables be removed?
Will the topsoil be replaced?
Will the company retain the right to install another windmill without a new agreement?

You would probably have the best bargaining rights by negotiating as a group with other farmers.
 
Yesterday's Tractors is always my first stop for legal, medical and marital advise. Do yourself a
favor and contact a lawyer who specializes in this kind of stuff.
 
wgm,
You forgot to also list advice on breakfast cooking, canning stuff, showing your wound or cut as it is still bleeding. If you miss the daily cartoon your whole day will be a mess.

You want tractor advice? Really?
LA in WI
 
They just finished 1 south of me about 3 miles. I ve been around them on my friends farm, the part about killing birds is total BS, there are 49 of them, not all on his farms and I have been under a dozen of them. There is no evidence of dead birds. I have not heard anything bad about the leases, but this is the 1st year they have been in operation. This co did clean up after themselves, put the roads back in better shape than they were before they started putting up the mills. I have some unproductive ground, if they decide to expand north I will allow them to put up a couple on my place. Yes there is a small whistling noise to them.
 
Mark, what a bizarre design for a windmill, no wonder they went out of business before they began! Yikes. That thing just has failure written all over it. What were they trying to accomplish, I'll have to see if any of their thoughts are still online as to what they were trying to develop besides failure.

Towers need to be the smooth tube, not open lattice. Where they get in trouble with birds is with the open lattice type of tower, burds roost on the lattice work..... Smooth hollow pipe is the only way to go.

As well the smooth pipe tends to have a deeper root, not as wide, so it wastes less of your land.

The trouble with windmills is the access roads, they put a narrow road to each tower. This is a pain to farm around, aside from the towers themselves. Lose more land to the roads than the actual tower.

Paul
 
Living by the fowler Indiana wind farm here's The two biggest issues that come from them, first that there is a kilo watt minimum for you to meet in order to be paid, problem is the windmills are the first thing to be shut down when the company doesn't need to sell power. The last facilities they shut down are steam generators. So likely hood to recieve full amount is low. The second problem is the cranes used to build the towers are so large they collapse any field tile near them, the companies around here have 5 years to fix them or you eat the cost yourself.
 
Oh this had a deep root, and actually if you look in the video there is 3 braces that originally went to the tower, they are stacked on the ground next to it. The idea was to have 3 pairs of fans on the top part which rotates towards the wind. The design was intended to be able to be assembled with just a small manlift and forklift in a remote site and then self erected with big hydraulic cylinders to stand it up, they broke a few sets of hinges before finally hiring a huge crane to stand it up. A good concept but had it's flaws
 
Well that was an interesting bit of research. Feel bad for folks who wanted to depend on jobs from that thing, but wow what a crazy design, surprised they found enough funding to get as far as they did! Couple little spider fans on the side of a big round barrel is supposed to make power........ Yikes.

Paul
 
You left out electrical advice, instead of hiring an electrician. Sure bet if they need electrical advice, they have no clue how to fix it.
 
A neighbor looked into wind tower lease. Besides the above stated problems the wind company wrote into
the lease a no hunting clause that would have prevented him or anyone from hunting on his farm. He choose
not to sign a lease.

There are also law suits concerning silent vibrations affecting nearby residents health as far as 6 miles
from a wind tower.
 

That would have made a heck of a tv or short wave antennae tower before it got demolished. :shock: I bet a signal would go a long long way with that.
 
(quoted from post at 08:34:49 03/30/16) Just so you know that wind generators are noisy and they kill/injure wild birds such as eagles, hawks, etc.
Click to expand...

Yes! And the strobe effect causes unwanted issues for humans. Me included.
 

I appreciate everyone's input, thank you.

We are also speaking with our lawyer and other landowners.
 
Watch especially close for the clause in there that states you give up your homestead act rights by signing their contract, if (more likely when) the wind company goes bankrupt, if the government were to take
over operation of the wind farm, which could happen. But if the government took control, they then also OWN your land. The clause does no harm, until the government itself gets involved.
 
There's a couple hundred (at least) 30-40 driving miles from me, more coming in there, and some more coming about 30 driving miles from me in another direction. Night sky used to be black, no towns visible, now there are many red dots lighting the sky.

They put a 50 decibel noise limit requirement on the CUP permits for them. When they were approving more projects, people were wondering why they were being allowed in when they were already exceeding that limit.
 
JUST SAY NO. Many horror stories on the internet. Just do some searching. The wind companies DO NOT have your best interested in mind. If they want your land bad enough, have them sign an agreement that your attorney approves. It will never happen. Warn your neighbors also.
 
(quoted from post at 16:06:42 03/30/16) Y[b:0b2ff30908]esterday's Tractors is always my first stop for legal, medical and marital advise.[/b:0b2ff30908] Do yourself a
favor and contact a lawyer who specializes in this kind of stuff.
Click to expand...

Beauty! Absolute beauty of a statement. Well done.
 
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