Leasing/Donating Land for Windpower

I own over 100 acres in the southwest. How can I lease or otherwise make this land available for erection of wind-power generators? Who are the persons/organizations to contact for more information?

How many others have land in the wind-power belt? What happens if we get all these owners together? Boone has suggested, "......Have the Government make this land available...".

Why wait for the Government? Private land-owners could start the ball rolling: How many sites can be made available from just private owners in the wind-belt (or other good locations) and how many windmills could the aggregate of all this acreage support? (Sounds like a lot of megawatts out there!) Might be very useful to find out what kind of potential there is in this approach.

Tags: land, windmill

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Martyn Bignell on July 23, 2008 at 6:39am: Hi Chuck.
To power 500,000 homes it takes around 6,000 acres to house enough wind turbines to power them, however, search out maglev wind turbine technologies on the web. They have a new design which only requires 100 acres to power 750,000 homes, they could well be interested in your offer.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by ChuckJ on July 23, 2008 at 12:30pm: Thanks Martyn. Will check it out.

What I have in mind is establishing a grid or pooling of many wind turbines, each on a separate piece of private (or public) property in the wind belt, using from 1 to perhaps 4 (or more) wind turbines on each piece of property.

Since I am a neophyte in this technology, I will investigate further (per your suggestion)

Regards; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bill Meng on July 25, 2008 at 4:43pm: Chuck,
it depends where you are located. Check the US map at http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/wind_ma...

State maps are also available.

also check out www.awea.org; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by ChuckJ on July 26, 2008 at 2:05pm: Thanks to Bill Meng,

Used your info on wind resource sites:

The good news is I found just the information I was looking for:
The bad news is that the NM land I own has practically NO wind :-)

On the good side, I just read in the paper that several communities in upstate New York (my state) have leased out quite a bit of land to wind-farm developers. (A number are already in operation.) There are controversial aspects to this since there are conflict-of-interest problems in which owners of some of the properties approved for or being considered for wind-farms are on the town boards which control the approval process. Not everyone wants a wind-farm next door. Nothing is ever as simple as it looks on first inspection!

( P.S. Still think T. Boone is on the right track and will try to provide whatever support I can.); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bill Meng on July 28, 2008 at 3:07pm: You might check on the property's capability for solar.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by ChuckJ on July 28, 2008 at 3:38pm: Good suggestion, Bill. This may be a good possibility. I will check this out, first-hand, shortly; am planning to take a trip to the NM area in Sept.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rick on July 28, 2008 at 7:16pm: Hi Chuck,

Based on posts I've seen here like yours I set up a website at WLAB.com which I call the Wind Lab for people who are serious about using their real and intellectual property for Wind Power. It's beta, in an experimental stage, but the idea is to allow people to explore opportunities in a community setting.

You are welcome to register there and post your ideas or other relevant information about your land's qualities.

The present organization of the site consists of a Community Forum with discussion boards for the Eastern Grid, the Western Grid and for the special concerns of Farmers. The domain names EasternGrid.com, WesternGrid.com and FarmerGrid.com all point to the Wind Lab site, WLAB.com. The idea here is that the PickensPlan, as I understand it, calls for harvesting the wind of the Wind Belt, roughly corresponding with the Central Plains states, and distributing it to the East and West Coasts. So, as they say in Real Estate, location is everything. In this case, I suppose the locations that will matter the most will be those with the most consistent wind (there are maps that display this) with access to the trunk lines or whatever technology may be available for distributing power. Maybe it will ultimately be lasers and parabolic reflectors in geo-synchronous orbit!!!

In any event, you are welcome to use the Wind Lab to explore available opportunities.

Thanks,

Rick; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Freddie D. Harrell on August 1, 2008 at 12:46pm: I have a friend who owns 4000 acres of land in palo pinto county, TX. He lives 7 miles from a gas powered plant. 30 miles south of a wind farm that is south of Jacksboro, TX. He wants more information about building a wind farm on his property. He is not a member because he doesn't use the computer that much.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Larry Puckette on September 18, 2008 at 10:57am: Freddie

You should contact Clyde Childers through this site. Click on 'members' above and enter his name into the search field, then click on his name in blue and it will take you to his page. I understand he is involved in building wind farms.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Elva Pruitt on September 18, 2008 at 10:51am: We have 800 acres willing to consider leasing SW Oklahoma.
we are in the wind corrider.; ▶ Reply to This