How much wind farms pay landowners
A wind lease is a contract between a landowner and a wind energy developer. The landowner allows a turbine, an access road and buried cable on the land, and receives a yearly payment in return for as long as the turbine keeps running, typically 20 years or more. That mechanism is how wind farms pay landowners, and in 2022 it moved close to 935 million dollars to rural landowners nationwide, according to the United States Department of Energy, the federal agency that tracks wind economic impact through its WINDExchange program. The same 2022 data from that agency puts wind industry state and local tax payments at about 1 billion dollars and wind industry employment at more than 125,000 workers, a record high that year.
A widely repeated number that is not the source of this one
A 2016 writeup from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an advocacy group, is the page that a search on this topic often surfaces first, and it states a smaller total, 222 million dollars a year, citing 2015 data released by the American Wind Energy Association, an industry group now folded into American Clean Power. That older total describes a different year through a different reporting chain, an advocacy group relaying an industry estimate, not a federal agency stating its own number directly. The 935 million dollar figure for 2022 comes only from the Department of Energy WINDExchange page, stated in those exact words, with no advocacy group anywhere in that chain.
Lease payments have grown, and taxes add another stream
A separate Department of Energy page gives an earlier total, 706 million dollars a year, the wind industry own 2019 estimate for nationwide landowner lease payments. Measured against the 2022 total, that is growth of about 32% over 3 years, a calculation made by comparing the 2 dated Department of Energy figures rather than a number either page states on its own. The wind industry trade group American Clean Power states a larger, more recent combined total, 2.7 billion dollars, for land based wind state and local tax payments and lease payments together, without splitting out how much of that went to landowners alone, so it is not treated as a lease only figure here.
The 2019 figure is source 2, restating the wind industry own 2019 estimate. The 2022 figures are source 1, a direct government statement. State and local taxes are a separate payment stream from landowner leases, shown here for scale, not combined with it.
Show the numbers
| Landowner leases 2019 | 706 |
| Landowner leases 2022 | 935 |
| State and local taxes 2022 | 1,000 |
What a lease is worth to 1 landowner
A single 2 megawatt turbine paying the nationwide average lease rate works out to about 7,000 dollars a year, based on an average of 6,700 dollars per megawatt that the Department of Energy also publishes. John Dollinger, a farmer with 10 turbines on 800 acres in Grundy County, Illinois, signed his lease about 10 years before a 2025 interview at 10,000 dollars a year per turbine, and now receives about 12,000 dollars a year per turbine after adjusting for inflation. The United States Department of Agriculture, in a report covering 2011 to 2020, found that farmers who add turbines to their land typically make between 8,000 and 33,000 dollars a year, a range that puts Dollinger own contract inside the pattern rather than outside it.
The Dollinger row describes 1 farmer own contract in Grundy County, Illinois, growing over about 10 years. The typical range comes from a United States Department of Agriculture report covering 2011 to 2020, as restated by source 5, not read at the Department of Agriculture directly this session.
Show the numbers
| Dollinger, 1 turbine, signed to now | 10,000 to 12,000 dollars a year, adjusted for inflation |
| Typical turbine landowner nationwide | 8,000 to 33,000 dollars a year |
Money that funds a retirement a farmer would not otherwise have
Clayton Rosenberger, a self employed farmer in McLean County, Illinois, also receives annual turbine lease payments on his land. Self employment usually means no employer sponsored retirement account, so the payment fills a gap many farmers face.
I'm a self employed farmer. I don't have a 401(k). I don't have a retirement plan, but now I do.
Clayton Rosenberger, self employed farmer in McLean County, Illinois. Source 5.