Leasing land for wind farms

Young Blood

Is there money in it? I have a nice plot of land three miles in from the Atlantic coast in Co. Mayo situated on the slope of a hill. The land isn't great but I think it's ideal for a wind farm. This particular company is offering to lease land for single turbines but they're quite big, 500kw.
Does anyone have any info on what kind of money land leased to wind farms can generate?

Gordon Minard

How near is the land to your house?

There are loads of side effects from these Wind Turbines - even the light flicker from them causes problems . . .

Money wouldn't compensate you once you have a Contract signed . . .

Grow Lavender - loads of money to be made there!

Gordon Minard

Actually sorry - Mayo is probably too cold for Lavender? :-)

DoYouEvenLift

Gordon Minard wrote: »

How near is the land to your house?

There are loads of side effects from these Wind Turbines - even the light flicker from them causes problems . . .

Money wouldn't compensate you once you have a Contract signed . . .

Grow Lavender - loads of money to be made there!

What're the worst ones?

Miname

It's not just as simple as rent a bit of ground off someone and then sub let it for a wind farm.

Birdnuts

You need to first check if the area is zoned for wind farm development in the county plan. If it isn't its unlikely you'll get planning for it. How close it is to local housing is another consideration since objections are likely to arise if its likely to cause sound issues, shadow flicker, obstruction of views and general property depreciation. Wind farms need road access,provision of a sub-station, pylons or underground cables. Will one turbine warrant such developments and is it near a grid connection?? You also need to look into the small print of the lease to see exactly what you are signing on for in terms of your property rights going forward. Also get a good accountant to look into the tax implications, particulary if the money you get knocks you into a higher tax band.

rangler1

Young Blood wrote: »

Is there money in it? I have a nice plot of land three miles in from the Atlantic coast in Co. Mayo situated on the slope of a hill. The land isn't great but I think it's ideal for a wind farm. This particular company is offering to lease land for single turbines but they're quite big, 500kw.
Does anyone have any info on what kind of money land leased to wind farms can generate?

Let the company worry about planning, they're better at it.
As far as I know they'll only deal with the owner so subletting leased land won't happen.
Element power were giving €25000/yr for 4mw windmills around here as well as about 5000 for allowing them to look for permission on your land, so make sure you look for that too.
4MW is eight times the output of your 500kw

PS. be prepared to fall out with your neighbours over them:eek:

Young Blood

Gordon Minard wrote: »

How near is the land to your house?

There are loads of side effects from these Wind Turbines - even the light flicker from them causes problems . . .

Money wouldn't compensate you once you have a Contract signed . . .

Grow Lavender - loads of money to be made there!

Hi
The land I had in mind is about 3 or 4 acres behind the house. We only use the house ad a holiday home.

There is another 160 acres surrounding it which has potential considering we have 1or 2 neighbours close by.

Tokyo

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

What're the worst ones?

Noise is an immediate concern. Low frequency noise, 24 hours a day....

Gordon Minard

“…wind-energy projects create negative impacts on human health and well-being, the impacts are experienced mainly by people living near wind turbines who are affected by noise and shadow flicker.”

As I was saying, In addition to noise pollution wind turbines also have visual burdens.

The health impact of visual burdens cannot be underestimated. An epidemiology study conducted by World Health Organization determined a “bad view out of window” increased the risk for depression by 40%. The same study also demonstrated disturbance by noise and sleep disturbance by noise increased the risk of depression 40%, and 100% respectively. In addition to visual burdens wind turbines create noise pollution which can cause annoyance, stress and sleep disturbance.In light of these statistics it is expected that people may suffer adverse health effects from visual and noise impacts of wind turbines.

Rotating wind turbine blades interrupt the sunlight producing unavoidable flicker bright enough to pass through closed eyelids, and moving shadows cast by the blades on windows can affect illumination inside buildings.This effect is commonly known as shadow flicker.

Wind turbine shadow flicker has the potential to induce photosensitive epilepsy seizures however the risk is low with large modern models and if proper planning is adhered to. Planning should ensure the flash frequency does not exceed defined limits.

Wind turbine shadow flicker induced adverse human health effects include annoyance and/or stress.Wind turbine noise including low frequency noise may also contribute to the overall annoyance.

I am not a fan! I hate them . . . We need to investigate Tidal options ( as opposed to wave options ) . . .

coolshannagh28

The steam has run out of the wind turbine project , recovering economy and lack of capacity in the grid being two factors . The process is drawn out expect to wait 5 years from initial contact until construction , bickering among neighbours is another problem compounded when the unsuccessful fall out with those granted sites and the issues that then arise when the turbines are complete and running .
The lease does not go into big money generally 12k P/A considering the downsides.

Young Blood

coolshannagh28 wrote: »

The lease does not go into big money generally 12k P/A considering the downsides.

12k for now many turbines?

personally i dont care what the neighbours think. this land is useless.

ganmo

Young Blood wrote: »

12k for now many turbines?

personally i dont care what the neighbours think. this land is useless.

Then sell it to someone who can find a use for it

Young Blood

ganmo wrote: »

Then sell it to someone who can find a use for it

i would prefer to put wind turbines on it.

ganmo

Then check the wind maps, check the distance to the high voltage lines and check what the local coco says in their development plan about them.
Where I am I'd fall down at the last hurdle

bigtomw

i was looking into this a while back but i was more than 60 km away from the nearest sub station so it wouldn't of been viable there are also other complications that would arise i will paste part of an email from someone who is in the wind industry that i recieved




"By way of advice, at the moment the Eirgrid/ESB pipeline in Ireland for wind is full for new applications and will probably be this way until at least around 2025 (if not later). The current round of developments is called Gate 3.

This means if you want to start from scratch now, and go about leasing land, then you would have to wait until beyond 2025 until Eirgrid announce Gate 4 plans. My opinion is that this is well into the future, as we are already having delays on Gate 3 projects that should be built.

The other option is to try and have your land leased as part of an existing Gate 3 project that hasn't been developed yet. This is possible due to the following:
- when Eirgrid/ESB started receiving applications for grid capacity in recent years (for Gate 3), a share of developers applied for a connection offer even if they didn't have planning and other things 100% sorted. They had to take a gamble in doing this, as there is a lot of non-joined up thinking in the government.
- some of these developers are now in difficulty because maybe they are running into planning issues with land that they were not aware of.
- in this case, they may be looking for new land areas to lease and develop that would be close to the location in which they originally planned to develop.

So for you, it would be best to identify an existing development that may be going on in your area, and ask the developers if they are interested in leasing you land for the wind farm they are planning. Even if the answer is no, approaching a developer who has a wind farm near you, is generally the best bet. This is because if they can't use your land now for a Gate 3 development, they are aware of it if they wanted to extend their wind farm in the future for a Gate 4 development."