Stay centered on your core community identities while enabling sustainable, long-term economic growth that benefits local residents and businesses.
We believe in supporting local communities through the development of renewable energy that provides financial and quality of life improvements for local government and its citizens. We have seen that many major manufacturers consider access to renewable energy a key factor when deciding where to locate new facilities providing communities with a ripple effect of economic benefits stemming from renewable energy projects.
We understand landowner concerns of large-scale solar projects and we strive to highlight polices that protect these rights and will provide reliable solar energy to meet customer demand.
We value the safe installation and operation of wind energy developments and look to help local governments and communities with the best policies to foster these developments to achieve emission reduction goals and deliver reliable and cost effective energy.
At The Center, we believe the best policies are those that balance citizen concerns, energy needs and economic benefits. These policies will help local communities grow and prosper in an era of energy diversification and help lower energy costs during economic uncertainty.
The Center for Infrastructure and Economic Development works with local leaders seeking to transition their communities to adapt to and realize benefits from emerging infrastructure and energy technologies. Our goal is to help counties and municipalities stay centered on their core community identities while enabling sustainable, long-term economic growth that benefits local residents and businesses.
Money that can be used to improve local services or infrastructure
Well-paid jobs in a rapidly growing industry
Businesses are increasingly looking to locate in places with access to renewable energy
Meet local emission reduction targets with clean renewable energy
Solar panels are designed to absorb sunlight and in most cases snow or ice will melt quickly and, when needed, installation companies will remove the snow and ice to maintain reliability.
Many counties across the country have cited that property values following the installation of large-scale developments have either had no effect, or in some cases, have even increased property values. Please refer to our Case Studies and Reports page for cited examples.
The revenue and tax benefits go directly to the county and benefit its local citizens where the power stays local or not. Similar to a farmer selling their crops to buyers outside of their community, energy works the same way.
The companies are responsible for repairing and removing these projects. This is typically done through a decommissioning bond to hedge against unforeseen or unfortunate circumstances.
A project’s increased investment in a taxing district results in a higher assessed value for the district. That doesn’t mean an assessed value of individual landowner’s properties, and in fact higher assessed value for a district can result in future tax decreases for everyone. Further, these projects are not funded by the government or by taxpayers, but rather by private companies making investments in renewable energy. No local tax dollars are used.
Wind and solar are already providing a substantial portion of electricity without reliability issues in many parts of the country. For example:
i. Xcel Energy, which serves customers in eight Midwestern states, sources more than 30% of its electricity from clean energy, led by solar and wind.
ii. The Southwest Power Pool, operating the grid for many Great Plains states, generates a third of its electricity from wind on average.
iii. Last year, both Iowa and South Dakota produced 50% of their electricity from wind.
A 2021 report from the International Energy Agency shows:
“The growth of renewables is forecast to increase in all regions compared with the 2015-2020 period. China remains the global leader in the volume of capacity additions: it is expected to reach 1200 GW of total wind and solar capacity in 2026 – four years earlier than its current target of 2030. India is set to come top in terms of the rate of growth, doubling new installations compared with 2015-2020. Deployments in Europe and the United States are also on track to speed up significantly from the previous five years. These four markets together account for 80% of renewable capacity expansion worldwide”
According to the International Energy Agency:
Despite rising costs for key materials used to make solar panels and wind turbines, additions of new renewable power capacity in 2021 were forecasted to rise to 290 gigawatts (GW) in 2021, surpassing the previous all-time high set in 2020, according to the latest edition of the IEA’s annual Renewables Market Report.
Renewable energy projects provide farmers with sustainable income not dependent on weather, federal trade policies and global pricing. It’s homegrown, renewable energy that provides a diverse income for the farm families who voluntarily and temporarily lease their land.
Temporarily leasing land for these projects is a sustainable farming practice. Using the land in a manner that preserves the soil quality with select plantings and minimal commercial fertilizer applications have positive effects that allow for restoration of the soil for future agricultural uses
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