How renewable energy landowners are powering the economy

If you’re a landowner and feel like you’ve pulled the short straw with your land payments, or like you could be getting more out of your land but you don’t know how, those feelings may not be completely misplaced. Read on to understand why you may be entitled to more, and to find out how to go about getting it.

There are an estimated 7000 onshore wind turbines across the UK which have an operational capacity of 12,078 MW* - one-fifth of this capacity is due to the record-breaking amount of wind power that was created in 2017. Wind power has had a good run recently, which wouldn’t be possible without the landowners who contribute a vast amount to the energy sector and often get little recognition for it.

We estimate that one-third of landowners are individuals, and individual wind farm landowners generate 10.5 million MWhs* of energy which is worth more than one billion pounds to the UK economy, and landowners see a small fraction of this.

Individual landowners also reduce carbon emissions by 4.5 million tonnes each year, and power more than 2.5 million homes – that’s enough to power all households in Scotland.

So, if you’re a landowner and have had some nagging questions in the back of your mind about the wind turbines on your land, rest assured there could be some grounds for these thoughts.

What you can do

Firstly, recognise that the land you own has contributed to the surge of wind power generation, and without your land the economy would be worse off. Armed with the information above, hopefully you have a bit more confidence to at least explore whether you are indeed getting paid less than you should be.

Based on numerous audits, co-founder of Accounting for Energy, Travis Benn, estimates that 75% of land rent payments could be underpaid. Payment figures are reached using complex calculations, and we have found that even highly-skilled in-house legal and accounts teams don’t have the time and resources to completely understand them. But this is where specialist auditors come in, they can check if you have been receiving accurate payments. If nothing else, it’ll give you peace of mind, and at best you could receive a back payment, and have an improved rental agreement going forward. The service is free and charged on a contingency basis and all that is required from you is the relevant paperwork.

*Figures are estimates and all stats are for sites 100kW and over.