Landowner Easements & Royalty Payments

This topic is included here under Community Power because the alternative to signing a lease with a traditional corporate developer of a wind or solar power plant is building and owning the project yourself or with your neighbors. The royalties paid landowners for leasing their land in a conventional project is a taboo subject in North America where secrecy prevails in such transactions. The more landowners know about how much a project will earn and what they will receive in payment gives them more power in negotiating the terms of a lease than otherwise. It’s in the interest of the corporate developer to keep landowners in the dark as much as possible. Thus, the reason for secrecy and why the articles below are controversial.