Central Texas landowners pick up wind turbine deals as politicians rail against renewable energy

James Lyles glided a dusty four-wheeler to a stop at the fence line. He answered the how’s-it-goin’ question the only way a farmer could this summer. “Hot,” he said, pointing to the ghost of a cornfield. Stifling heat and stingy clouds forced Lyles to harvest a month early, slashing yields to 80 bushels per acre from their typical production of 130 to 150 bushels. “It got too hot, too early,” he said. But Lyles doesn’t fret about the weather as much as he used to. He’s two years into a 30-year lease with a renewable energy company that erected four large turbines on his land in exchange for a set fee plus a share of the electricity revenue they generate. In a typical year, the extra cash would help Lyles pay down land and equipment loans and get a head start on his next crop. This year, the $48,000 in lease payments and royalties will just about cover his drought-related losses. “My banker is a lot happier knowing I have these windmills,” he said.

The 200-ton towers, nearly as tall as a football field is long, are increasingly common along the highways and FM roads of Central Texas. Developers promise economic benefits to rural communities, particularly through tax revenue for local schools. The turbines themselves may surprise passers-through who thought of them as a West Texas phenomenon. One of the most active players in communities like this is Engie, a French power-generation company with North American headquarters in Houston. Its Prairie Hill Wind Farm, northeast of Waco, began producing electricity in December 2020 with 100 turbines across 30,000 acres and a substation connecting it to the state grid. It has a production capacity of 300 megawatts per day, enough to power all the homes in Galveston County for a year. Engie has two power projects under construction nearby: the similarly sized Limestone Wind project and the 250-megawatt Sun Valley Solar project. Both are forecast to be in operation by year’s end. In 2023, Engie plans to add 100 megawatts of battery storage at Sun Valley to allow it to hold on to electricity that can be released when needed.