By Tara Greiman, WFU Director of Conservation and Stewardship
As more and more large-scale renewable energy projects are considered around the state of Wisconsin, rural communities are faced with complicated conversations considering the tradeoffs of potential positive and negative consequences of projects that will affect large swaths of farmland as well as transmission in their communities.
In order for communities to mitigate negative impacts and maximize benefits, thoughtful consideration with input from the whole community is necessary to come up with concerns and priorities in each community. The model currently proposed by the USDA, which WFU will be facilitating in communities is the creation of a Community Benefit Plan (CBP) which outlines those concerns and priorities which can then be used to develop a Community Benefit Agreement (CBA).
Erik Hadlestad, the Energy Democracy Director for CURE outlined the core concepts of CBPs, CBAs, in a recent webinar for the Wisconsin Farmers Union. For the last 11 years Erik has been working on the clean energy transition at rural electric cooperatives at an organization called CURE. During that time his work has led to historic investments in rural electrification through the New ERA and PACE programs passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. In 2024 Erik served as an advisor to the Rural Utility Service helping developing the USDA’s first Community Benefit Plan framework. In addition to his professional work Erik is also a County President in Minnesota Farmers Union and the founder and board chair of a newly opened cooperative grocery store.
Why Community Benefit Agreements Matter
For the Community: Large developments mean big changes in a community which can affect community resources like roads, impact residents in many ways, and represent a significant flow of resources (i.e., energy) through the community. Organized communities that work early and consistently with developers to ensure that projects are sited in ways that make sense to the local landscape and citizen priorities. Developing a CBA also ensures that communities have a plan to retain some of the dollars flowing through their community to improve it.
Commonly developers work and create agreements with individual landowners on which their projects are sited. This leaves people adjacent to projects and those affected by expanded transmission to bear changes and costs to their land without receiving the benefit of generous lease payments. By developing a plan and agreement that considers the full community, some of those benefits can be shared by everyone affected by the project.
For Developers: Renewable energy utilities and developers have a strong stake in project success and gaining community buy-in is considered a solid “de-risking strategy.” After 30 years of clean energy siting research, Hatlestad noted there are 2 factors pivotal to a project’s success
A Fair community engagement process - which includes early and consistent interactions with trusted community stakeholders that engage them in the planning process.
Delivering highly visible and tangible benefits to the community. This has to be specific and truly focused on the community.
Without these factors, developers often find themselves trying to shoehorn a large project into a community actively bracing against their investment due to distrust, poor management, and problems that aren’t properly addressed by the developer. This can shut a project down, slow the development considerably, and create a slough of headaches for everyone involved.
For Farmers: Hatlestad also noted a new model called a “Farmer Benefit Plan” which has been adopted by the USDA for recipients of PACE and New ERA grants. Wisconsin’s Dairyland Power has received these grants and will have to consider how to develop a farmer benefit plan.
What do CBPs/CBAs Include?
What goes into a CBP can be as diverse as each community they end up in. Community members are able to advocate for whatever investments they think would be most important to their communities. They can include siting rules, outline expectations of communication, and requirements for site remediation and clean up when the installations are damaged or no longer of use. They can also think outside of the box. Many CBAs & CBPs include workforce development requirements. They can include developer investments in local schools, emergency services, support for farmland preservation, and ecological requirements to the developed sites. One town in New York even required the company pay for a staff liaison whose job is to represent the community in negotiations with the company.
Hatlestad noted:
“All of you know your communities better than anyone. I would guess each of your communities has a laundry list a mile long that could use extra investment.”
How Much is Realistic?
Hatlestad outlined examples of a few different CBAs ranging in value from $1.5 to $22.4 million.
When asked what to consider a reasonable starting place in negotiations for total value of the community benefits, Hatlestad noted that “this is naturally controversial,” but the value of the community benefit could be on the order of 1 - 10% of total project cost which will vary based on project size and how important the project is to the developer’s portfolio. The take home is communities should not shy away from asking for a lot.
Who Signs These Agreements?
When asked who signs these agreements, Hatlestad noted that there is no standard agent yet who represents communities. He did note that local municipalities and school districts should be involved, but community organizations may act as the represented entity.
Resources to learn more:
Although it can be difficult to find existing CBAs due to their sensitive, legally binding nature. Hatlestad outlined major points of several existing CBAs for wind and solar developments in his presentation. The agreements he used as examples come from a database of CBAs collected by Columbia Law School.
The Center for Rural Affairs has model clean energy ordinances for communities to consider which consider logistical requirements of renewable sites.
The Rural Power Coalition also has a guide to CBAs for rural electric cooperatives which may provide some more context as well.
The Wisconsin Farmers Union is invested in advocating for rural communities and will be working with our membership on representing community needs to Dairyland Power. If you want to start getting involved in a local CBA process, contact our Director of Conservation & Stewardship, Tara Greiman. 715-492-0329
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