Solar leasing

[quicksandfarmer]

I got an interesting letter in the mail last week. It was from a company looking to lease land to install solar panels. I think they must have gotten my name from going through the land records. They said they're looking to lease land, looking for a minimum of 12 acres, flat and clear, with access to a road and power lines.

I'm not really interested, but what caught my eye was that they were offering "up to" $3500/acre per year. That's a pretty princely sum for agricultural land around here.

 

[DKCDKC]

It is apparently a growing phenomena. Big controversy here in the Shenandoah Valley. Solar folks want to install huge solar farm over some of the best farmland around - nice and flat. Neighbors are fighting it, but it means real money for some landowners. Fate of solar facility to be decided next week

If the nation is going to undertake as much alternative energy as some folks want, a lot of good land will become unusable. I can understand the desire for solar, but why not put it on some rocky terrain instead of nice flat rich farmland...

 

[coldsteelva]

It is apparently a growing phenomena. Big controversy here in the Shenandoah Valley. Solar folks want to install huge solar farm over some of the best farmland around - nice and flat. Neighbors are fighting it, but it means real money for some landowners. Fate of solar facility to be decided next week

If the nation is going to undertake as much alternative energy as some folks want, a lot of good land will become unusable. I can understand the desire for solar, but why not put it on some rocky terrain instead of nice flat rich farmland...

Hey there from Northern VA. The problem with the 'neighbors' is that they are trying to dictate what happens with land that THEY don't own. That is downright preposterous. Small scale agriculture is all but dead and if the only way for farmland to make money is for the owners to 'farm' solar then so be it.

 

[fishheadbob]

The offer I got was 20 or 30 years at $3,000 per acre. They were pretty deep into their due diligence when they finally noticed I didn't have 3 phase electric to pipe the electricity into the grid. I had zero problems with their offer, at the end of the lease they were to remove the equipment and the farmland reverted to me. They did sign a friend of mine one town over to this deal, his town immediately passed a 2 year moratorium on solar farms while they study things. The same company is trying to get a 20 acre site going on a farm in another nearby township that recently had a big coal fired plant go belly up; they seem much closer to beginning construction but are of course getting sued by NIMBY groups opposed to the plan.
Personally I don't see negatives to their concept. The land they were interested in was pretty crummy, grade 4 soil that wouldn't have grossed more than 3 or 4 thousand dollars annually for all 20 acres. It wasn't very visible to neighbors or from the highway. I have noticed one or two of these installations in traveling the country, and most folks don't know they are there. I actually and honestly was considering upgrades to my drainage and equipment using some of the rental money to make my remaining acreage more productive.
Production of most energy is a dirty process and is hard on the environment. A solar farm is probably the least destructive option, but someone is always going to be opposed. My acreage also sits over 2 different geological formations, Medina Sands and Utica Shale. Both are known to be good candidates for hydrofracking, but this is New York and those formations aren't going to be drilled for decades if ever as we all watch what big oil has done to the environment in nearby Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
We all like cheap energy; I pay $1.79 for regular on a nearby reservation, and an average of 13 cents per kwh in N.Y., not known for cheap prices. The problem is that to have cheap, domestic energy we have to endure some tradeoffs which we aren't always willing to face.

 

[TheMan419]

Good grief. At those prices they could have bought the land in just a couple of years!

 

[LouNY]

These solar leases seem like a good way to go if a person has the right location.
One thing to watch out for, and it seems like the ones around here have covered
is the increase in property taxs as the property gets reassessed.

 

[fishheadbob]

I also wondered why they didn't make a purchase offer. This place isn't worth what they were offering in lease payments.

 

[CobyRupert]

These solar leases seem like a good way to go if a person has the right location.
One thing to watch out for, and it seems like the ones around here have covered
is the increase in property taxs as the property gets reassessed.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

As part of being reclassified from agricultural land to something else.

Also look at who cleans it up and removes at end of panel's lifespan. Are they bonded?

Also, and I don't have the specifics, but it seems there was catch on the right to sell your land, or pass it on to inheritors, or who gets first option to buy.

 

[Jchonline]

Right now the only places that recycle the silica panels are overseas. If it were me I would write mandatory recycling into any agreement I signed. Also property taxes might be the issue. You want to know what they are increasing to before signing.

 

[NorTracNY]

These places are getting government money to help. They don't want to buy the land because they don't want to own it. In NY, the taxes on the land is ridiculous. For those fortunate to be contacted by these companies, congratulations. Read the paperwork carefully and ensure you have an attorney review them before signing. I'm aware of someone that was given over $10,000 by one of these companies just to move forward with planning to put in a system. That company decided not to in the end, but the person is richer from it. Now a new place has contacted them and they are being offered even more money. It's just sad that the government is giving these small companies the money to make this attractive to them.

I have panels on my house and I thank you all for paying for them. It's sad how much we are taxed and how the money is wasted.

Oh, as for people that brought up assessment. In NYS, there are not assessment taxes allowed on solar panels.

 

[STx]

I've seriously considered building a 5 acre farm in the back of my property using crowd funding to finance it. We don't really use the area and there 3 phase power at the property line. Im just not sure I'd be able to sell the power to the utility, our lines are operated by a co-op and there's only one residential retail electric provider available to us so I think that the lines may not be connected to a larger grid. I've still got a fair amount of research to do but, I haven't ruled it out. We get a LOT of sun in deep South Texas.

 

[KennyG]

Here is an article about solar leasing. It's not a bad idea, but if you don't use all the power generated by the system you may not get a good return, depending on your local utility rules. Also, it seems the sales pitch for these may project electricity cost increases that are not consistent with past history, especially with the availability of cheap natural gas.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

 

[EddieWalker]

If it's anything like the windmill scam, they have money to through away because it's coming from the government. When that money runs out, they disappear and you have nobody to turn to that will clean up the mess. There is something similar happening to my neighbor for a company to convert plastic into oil. They took a quarter acre from him so they could access a gas well and said that it was a local city that was doing the eminent domain, but they don't have the money to buy the pipe to run gas to the city. It's all just a scam. Back in CA, where I'm from, the landowners with windmills are their property are stuck with them while they fall apart. It's literally a windmill graveyard as you drive by!!!

As for solar farms, they require natural gas to warm them up in the morning so they can start generating electricity as quickly as possible. They never make enough to earn a profit, which is why they all close down when the funding dries up.

 

[dodge man]

Through my work I've done some surveys for these solar farms also. Kind of shocked me but one county denied them. People don't want coal, nuke, hydro, fossil fuel and no solar. They are quiet, fairly low to the ground, I'm not sure what problem people have with them. Same thing, here just leases I think. Taxes vary by state. Say you buy a new truck and park it at your house, your property taxes don't go up because of that. Some states look at solar farms or wind farms that way also, they aren't permanent so taxes don't go up. Some stated up the property value the full amount, others somewhere in between. Most places require a bond for wind farms or solar so they can be taken down if the company goes under.

 

[dmccarty]

...
Oh, as for people that brought up assessment. In NYS, there are not assessment taxes allowed on solar panels.

For now there is not assessment but that could change with the signature on a piece of paper. Spain had tax incentives for people to install solar panels. Then the government got into a financial mess and they TAXED solar panels. :shocked: People started to remove the panels to avoid the tax.

As previously mentioned, the OP should make sure there is a bond or some such that will pay for the removal of the system at the end of the contract. I would also make sure there was a way for the company to pay for removal or to pay for increased taxes as result of the solar panel installation.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

... They are quiet, fairly low to the ground, I'm not sure what problem people have with them.

They are pretty ugly. There is one I drive by from time to time and I am not sure which is worse, the acres of panels or the crappy, green fence they installed to hide the panels. :confused3: I wonder what the solar panel installation does to nearby property values?

The panels sure are better than looking at tall wind turbines. Saw a bunch of them in Scotland and Ireland and they sure destroy the view of the mountains and sea.

Later,
Dan

 

[Jstpssng]

As somebody else already said, we all want cheap power but we don't want nukes, we don't want coal, we don't want hydro, we dont want biomass boilers, we don't want windmills... That power needs to come from someplace. In this state "we" are all about taking out dams on the rivers for "environmental" reasons. Yet there is a,current proposal to blast a power line R/W from the huge hydro plant in Quebec across western Maine so that Massachusetts can get more power. Why is hydro dirty here, but "green" if brought in across the border from Canada?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

As somebody else already said, we all want cheap power but we don't want nukes, we don't want coal, we don't want hydro, we dont want biomass boilers, we don't want windmills... That power needs to come from someplace. In this state "we" are all about taking out dams on the rivers for "environmental" reasons. Yet there is a,current proposal to blast a power line R/W from the huge hydro plant in Quebec across western Maine so that Massachusetts can get more power. Why is hydro dirty here, but "green" if brought in across the border from Canada?

I want coal powered electric. It's been good for years.

 

[300UGUY]

A friend of mine was offered 800 per acre, for 20 years. And this was for 80 acres. He has big transmission lines running thru. Interesting to me is that a few miles away, a new power plant is going in. That property has 2 natural gas transmission lines, and the electric transmission lines. Both of these properties are farm ground right now. I think both projects are going to happen.

 

[300UGUY]

As somebody else already said, we all want cheap power but we don't want nukes, we don't want coal, we don't want hydro, we dont want biomass boilers, we don't want windmills... That power needs to come from someplace. In this state "we" are all about taking out dams on the rivers for "environmental" reasons. Yet there is a,current proposal to blast a power line R/W from the huge hydro plant in Quebec across western Maine so that Massachusetts can get more power. Why is hydro dirty here, but "green" if brought in across the border from Canada?

We had a lot of dams that no longer producing power. Mostly because they silted up, the reservoir got too shallow. They aren’t big enough to produce much anyway, and the power companies passed them off to the state years ago. The cost to excavate the reservoir was not financially viable.

Hydro 1 I think is the name in Ontario. They have some big hydro projects. I think hydro has to be huge to work, flooding large areas. Hard to down here, up there they mainly displace beavers....