Land acquisition for wind farm projects

By Charles Egner

Without land you cannot build a wind farm. While some may be under the impression that acquiring land is simple and easy, the reality is that land acquisition today requires the same level of expertise and specialized skill as any other phase of wind farm development.

“As farmers, ranchers and their attorneys become more savvy about the wind industry and what different wind developers are willing to offer, wind developers need an approach that combines a sophisticated, targeted and strategic methodology with a down-home appeal”

As farmers, ranchers and their attorneys become more savvy about the wind industry and what different wind developers are willing to offer, wind developers need an approach that combines  a sophisticated, targeted and strategic methodology with a down-home appeal in order to connect and build relationships with the salt-of-the-earth landowners of rural America. As the amount and complexity of information available to anyone on the internet grows, so does the challenge of acquiring land. The days of swooping into town and instantly signing a horde of landowners to a long-term lease agreement that can then be sold on the secondary market are long gone.

There are several keys to success for land acquisition in today's market:

1. Good Lease Agreement: Start with a "landowner-friendly" lease agreement that is competitive for the area and commercially viable for the wind developer. Attempts to low-ball and negotiate upward increases the likelihood of outright rejection and opens up exposure to competitive forces.
2. Team Commitment: Keep an open line of communication throughout the entire land acquisition process. Supporting your land agent team in every way possible produces a stable cohesive team environment that yields greater and more efficient results, saving time and money. Micro-managing land agents tends to have a deleterious effect on projects. Trust your professionals and trust that quality people yield quality results.
3. Scope Your Project Site: Understanding how landowners perceive the wind industry and the idea of a wind farm in their immediate vicinity before you launch your land work efforts helps you formulate an initial strategy that ultimately saves time and resources.
4. Good Land Agents: Having the right land agents on the ground is one of the most important aspects of land acquisition. Trust is the foundation of building relationships with landowners and utilizing seasoned veterans with life experience and superior communication skills to connect with landowners (many of whom are Baby Boomers) in an easy, comfortable and genuine manner leads to signed contracts. The preponderance of landowners will see through disingenuous contrivances and using the right people to form a bond of trust with landowners is essential to the success of any land acquisition.
5. Educate Your Public: Informing your target audience about the wind industry in general and your project in particular is the first step in selling your project to landowners. The soft-sell approach has proven more effective than the traditional hard-sell and being honest and forthright in disseminating information has become as important as ensuring that landowners have accurate, factual information. Word of one dishonest gesture can rapidly spread through a community and dramatically slow down a project.  When asked a question by a landowner be sure to know the answer. If you don't know the answer or aren't sure, making up something can undermine your efforts. To retain credibility with landowners it is imperative that any lingering questions be answered as soon as possible.
6. Power Strategies: Land work is a fluid process of continual strategic thinking and dynamic execution of strategies on the ground, often with strategies within strategies. As your land agents work their way through the proposed project they are constantly evaluating landowners (and groups of landowners), trying to gauge what they are thinking and feeling about the project, discerning their real objections and whether they will sign or not. This market intelligence aides the land agent in recognizing what part a particular landowner will play in the overall strategy of gaining site control.
7. The Tipping Point: Ultimately, the goal is to gain site control, to obtain enough contiguous land to build the wind farm you want to build. Successful land acquisition is contingent upon creating and sustaining enough momentum to arrive at the Tipping Point, the stage where the aggregate number of landowners combined with the influence from the most critical and persuasive landowners compels outstanding or indecisive landowners to get on board. When you hit the Tipping Point a project becomes smoother and easier and  your goal of site control is achieved. This Tipping Point strategy requires a consistent presence and constant attention of the land agent team to create the necessary momentum to reach the Tipping Point.  Allowing your land agent teams to go home every weekend weakens the momentum. Momentum and gaining the Tipping Point only work if the land agent team is on the ground for extended periods, one month or more at a time, with no more than a one-week hiatus between stints.

When a wind developer commits significant resources to a project, it is imperative there be a corresponding commitment to doing the job right. Having the right experts significantly increases the effectiveness and efficiency of any project, reducing overall costs. Hesitation on the part of wind developers to launch a well-conceived land acquisition venture has shown to have a crippling effect on a project. The wrong plan and the wrong personnel can turn a six-month land acquisition goal into a two-year nightmare. When wind developers deploy the wrong people (their middle-management project managers (PMs), for example) to do land work they fall under the illusion of saving money but often find themselves losing out: if land acquisition is drawn out too long, the Tipping Point eludes their grasp and the project risks exposure to competition, creating the potential for a fractured or a completely collapsed project and the exponential loss of opportunity and resources.

Without land you cannot build a wind farm. Without the right land agents, you risk losing land. My advice to all wind developers is to use professional and specialized land agent teams who can get the job done in a few months rather than a few years. If you are going to do it, do it right.

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