How much money a wind farm pays a town in Wisconsin
How much money a wind farm pays a town in Wisconsin comes down to one state formula, and wind and solar pay the identical rate under it. Wisconsin Statutes section 79.04 sends what the state calls utility aid, a payment straight to the local government hosting a qualifying plant of at least 1 megawatt, at 5,000 dollars a year for every megawatt, a unit of electricity generating capacity. 2,000 dollars of that is a production capacity payment. A plant in a town leaves the town 666.67 dollars per megawatt and the county 1,333.33 dollars per megawatt. In a city or village, that split reverses. The remaining 3,000 dollars is an alternative energy incentive payment, 1,500 dollars per megawatt to the municipality and 1,500 dollars per megawatt to the county. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue report dated October 16, 2025, source 3, states the incentive rate reached 1,500 dollars only with payments made in 2024, after 2023 Wisconsin Act 19 raised it from 1,000 dollars per megawatt.
Covers every technology that qualifies for state utility aid, including natural gas and nuclear waste storage, not only wind and solar. Figures for 2023 through 2025 are the amounts the Wisconsin Department of Revenue reports as paid. 2026 is that report own estimate.
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| 2023 | 88.6 |
| 2024 | 99.3 |
| 2025 | 105.4 |
| 2026 estimate | 104.0 |
What host towns and counties do with the money
Clean Wisconsin, an environmental group, counted 26 Wisconsin towns receiving utility aid at the end of 2024 for hosting 21 wind and solar projects larger than 50 megawatts, averaging 179,067 dollars a town. 13 counties averaged 389,997 dollars. Fond du Lac County, host to 274 megawatts of combined wind and solar capacity, received 775,200 dollars that year, the largest county total recorded. The Town of Calumet used its utility aid to take out a low interest note and repair 5 miles of damaged road in a single year, and has repaired 18 miles of road with the money since.
If your town is in the shape ours was in, this is a gift.
Don Breth, Board Chair of the Town of Calumet, host of the Blue Sky Green Field wind farm. Source 4.
The Town of Leroy, an early Wisconsin wind host, used its first payment to lower local taxes.
Fond du Lac County hosts a mix of wind and solar capacity. The Town of Two Creeks hosts 2 solar projects, not wind, and is included because the alternative energy incentive pays wind and solar at the identical rate.
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| Fond du Lac County | 775.2 |
| Town of Two Creeks | 541.7 |
| Average county | 390.0 |
| Average town | 179.1 |
What the formula means for a pending project
Alliant Energy filed for a 277 megawatt wind farm in Columbia County with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin on January 13, 2026, with a decision expected in early 2027 and operation by the end of 2028. Applying the confirmed 5,000 dollars per megawatt rate to that project gives 1,385,000 dollars a year in utility aid once it operates, split between its host towns and Columbia County. Over the 30 year project life that Clean Wisconsin uses in its own worked examples, that comes to 41,550,000 dollars, a figure this site calculated from the state formula and the filed project size, not a number either Alliant Energy or the state has published. It lands close to, but is not the same as, the 40,000,000 dollars in county tax revenue Alliant Energy own release estimates, a figure the release does not date or say whether it includes utility aid.
The total keeps rising, across every technology
Statewide utility aid paid to all Wisconsin municipalities and counties combined, across every qualifying technology including natural gas and nuclear waste storage, not only wind and solar, rose from 88,619,217 dollars in 2023 to 99,295,271 dollars in 2024, a 12% jump the year the incentive rate rose, then to 105,356,065 dollars in 2025, with 104,044,202 dollars estimated for 2026, according to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.