Wisconsin’s renewable energy wave is prompting some farmers to lease land for fields of solar panels

A 995-acre chunk of the dairy farm acreage is slated to become part of the sprawling $649 million Koshkonong Solar Energy Center Project.

The solar development from Chicago-based energy firm Invenergy Services LLC encompasses 6,384 acres. It is projected to generate 300 megawatts of energy and will include a 165-megawatt battery storage.

The project will generate enough power for 60,000 homes. It will also bring as many as 1.1 million solar panels across 2,400 acres of land.

Tina Hinchley said they will continue to use 1,600 acres for agriculture and tours of the farm. The dairy farmers hope leasing out almost 1,000 acres of land for the solar development will help provide extra revenue to help install more technology including some robotic equipment.

Duane Hinchley also hopes money from the solar farm will help keep the family farm viable going forward.

“I’m 61 years old,” he said, pointing to the myriad of contemporary and generational challenges farmers face.

Those include inflation and price fluctuations, weather events, labor shortages and uncertainty whether and how future generations will continue farming.

“I held off for almost more than a year,” Hinchley said, before agreeing to a 25-year lease for the solar project.

As utilities and U.S. energy grids transition to renewable sources, farmers across Wisconsin are being approached by utility companies and renewable energy developers about transitioning their land from fields of corn and dairy pastures to fields of solar arrays, windmills and large-scale batteries to store energy.

Dean Ortwell, president and CEO of the Chippewa Valley Electric Cooperative, said he’s seen farmers offered $750, $800 and up $1,500 per acre in lease offers from solar energy developers. That compares to $250 to $350 per acre for farming uses.

That can be tough to pass up, said Ortwell, whose utility coop is part of efforts to bring 2 mw of solar energy online.

Still, Ortwell said larger solar developments face community skeptics and opponents worried about Wisconsin losing prime farmland.

“There’s a lot of concern with some of the bigger projects taking some of the best farmland in the state,” he said, noting that farmers installed the original power poles and lines for the utility coop in 1938. “This is a farming community.”

New wave

There are 30 new and proposed solar projects statewide, according to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. They encompass thousands of acres across rural and small town Wisconsin.

“There is a pretty large wave of solar projects that are presently under construction,” said Michael Vickerman, policy director of Renew Wisconsin (a leading advocate for solar and renewable energy in the state).

Vickerman said those projects will add 1,000 megawatts of power to the state’s energy grid and the current wave of new projects will impact 1% of 2% of Wisconsin’s farmland.

The changing landscape of Wisconsin’s farmlands worry some communities and property owners where solar farms are landing. That angst is also resulting in pushback against some of the farmers who lease or sell land for solar and windmill projects.

“It’s been a big issue,” Hinchley said.

There has been significant local opposition to the Koshkonong.

That includes a lawsuit from the nearby Town of Christiana after the project was approved by state regulators in May. The suit challenges PSC’s approval and whether solar lease terms run afoul of state laws. The case is still before a Wisconsin court.

“There are people who generally support renewable energy but as soon as they hear it’s coming they don’t want it in their backyard,” Hinchley said.

Concerns include impacts on property values to how the wave of new solar farms will affect Wisconsin’s agrarian landscape as well as food production. The state is one of the country’s largest agricultural areas.

Rob Danielson, secretary and treasurer of SOUL of Wisconsin (a land conservation group concerned about solar development), said in testimony to the PSC that the Koshkonong prompts worries about short and long-term impacts to farmlands and adjacent properties.

He points to all the underground and above ground infrastructure and construction that project will bring. Danielson and other skeptics, including neighboring farmers, worry about what impacts solar fields might have adjacent farms, livestock and ecosystems.

Danielson wants the state regulatory board — which holds most of the approval powers for solar projects — to look at more robust environmental impact requirements and potential cash payments to adjacent and impacted local property owners.

Neighbor vs. neighbor

Cory Neeley said he hears about farmers who agreed to solar leases being ostracized and chastised in their local communities. He hears stories of neighbors refusing to speak to or interact with other neighbors because of local disagreements.

Neeley also said he has a potential answer. He is director of the SolarShare Wisconsin Cooperative. The Madison-based group looks to pool smaller and community investors — including farmers — to invest in renewable and solar projects in the state.

“We kind of aggregate smaller investors. It allows local people to invest in projects,” Neeley said.

He said investors can put in between $1,000 and $50,000 and his group raised $450,000 from 50 coop investors. Neeley said more local farmers and interests can benefit from renewable energy development via those investments helping build community support for projects.

“The goal is really to make it accessible,” Neeley said.

Tilting at windmills

Solar farms are seeing some parallels with community opposition to large windmills that dot rural landscapes as well as offshore. Wind energy critics have argued about their environmental, ecosystem (including on birds and marine life) and aesthetic impacts.

“There’s always been a group that doesn’t like it because they don’t like the way it looks,” said Nathan Weise, an engineering professor and renewable energy expert at Marquette University.

Weise said the energy realm is changing and requires the adoption of solar and other renewable sources — including to help respond to growth of electric cars.

“We cannot purely rely on coal as we have in the past,” Weise said. “We have to have these renewable energy sources. We need to add these.”

Local objections to some solar development have prompted calls for greater setbacks and potential buffers near adjacent properties — including farms.

But Weise said other than aesthetics, he doesn’t see the drawbacks to solar.

“I don’t see how it’s hurting anyone. It doesn’t produce noise. It doesn’t produce waste,” he said.

For Duane Hinchley, the writing is increasingly on the wall for farmers as they are challenged to say financially and operationally viable.

“Here in Wisconsin, we lost 400 dairy farms again last year. That’s continuing a decline,” Hinchley said.

He said there are now approximately 6,100 dairy farms statewide. There were 200,000 dairy farms in Wisconsin in 1935 and more than 100,000 in 1950, according to the University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee and other estimates.