Wind and Solar Energy Leasing in Clarke County, Alabama

The Walker Springs cluster: a real project, not a rumor

Southern Clarke County, around the communities of Alma and Gainestown off Walker Springs Road and Gainestown Road, is the site of a genuinely large, currently active solar development: the Walker Springs Solar Electricity project, comprising three separate but adjacent facilities developed by Origis Energy, a Florida-based solar and storage developer with roughly 170 projects worldwide. Origis is acquiring approximately 5,455 acres across the three sites, at a combined reported construction cost of $411,750,261. Walker Springs I and Walker Springs II together represent 209 MWdc of capacity, with Walker Springs I reported operational and Walker Springs II slated for commercial operation in 2026 -- and financing is real and closed, not merely proposed: Advantage Capital and Origis Energy closed a $265 million tax-equity commitment in December 2025 covering three Southeast solar projects, with $200 million of that specifically allocated to the two Clarke County facilities.

For a landowner in this part of Clarke County, that means solar leasing here is not a speculative, one-off inquiry -- it's an established pattern with a specific developer, a specific stretch of the county, and a specific financing structure already in place. If you receive a lease or easement offer for land near Alma or Gainestown, ask directly whether it's connected to this existing cluster or a genuinely separate proposal, since the answer changes what track record and what terms are actually comparable.

No zoning review here -- unlike four other Alabama counties

It's worth being precise about what does and doesn't govern solar siting in Clarke County. Alabama's legislature has granted a small handful of counties -- Baldwin, Cherokee, DeKalb, and Etowah -- their own local-act zoning authority specifically over wind (and in some cases solar) energy siting, each codified in that county's own Title 45 local-law chapter, with real setback and noise standards a developer has to clear. Clarke County is not one of those four counties. Consistent with this project's own Clarke County hub page, no evidence was found of any local zoning act covering Clarke County's unincorporated land generally, and that absence applies to solar and wind siting specifically as much as it does to any other land use here.

The practical effect: there is no county setback ordinance, noise limit, or siting permit review standing between a signed lease and actual construction in Clarke County the way there would be in, say, Cherokee County. That can cut either way depending on which side of the lease you're on -- a landowner signing a lease has fewer default protections to rely on if a project ends up sited closer to a property line or a home than they expected, while a landowner hoping a neighboring project might be blocked or modified by a county review process has no such process to appeal to here. Any protection has to come from the lease or easement contract terms themselves, negotiated directly, not from a county ordinance.

The tax-abatement deal: the real negotiation that did happen

With no zoning process to work through, the actual point of local government leverage over the Walker Springs project was a tax-abatement negotiation, and Clarke County's approach to it is now a matter of public record. In December 2023, the Clarke County Commission approved three separate abatement agreements with Origis Energy covering a 20-year period and totaling roughly $21.7 million in abated taxes -- but the commission explicitly carved out and protected the portions of ad valorem tax earmarked for county road and bridge work and for public schools, amounting to about $4.16 million that continues to flow regardless of the abatement. That's a real, specific template for how this county structures this kind of deal, useful context if you're ever asked to weigh in on, or negotiate around, a similar project.

Local reporting on the deal also surfaced a genuine, two-sided tension worth knowing honestly rather than glossing over: despite the project's roughly $400-million-plus scale, it's reported to create only 9 permanent jobs once construction is complete (construction itself is estimated at up to 250 temporary jobs across the broader three-project cluster, and Origis has represented the cluster could power the equivalent of 37,500 homes and generate up to $55 million in property taxes over time). At least one commissioner, Rhondel Rhone, was reported raising a specific concern: that solar developers, unlike traditional utilities, don't pay the same kind of franchise taxes to local government, meaning the county's ongoing return on a project this size is smaller than the headline investment figure might suggest. This page reports that as a documented local reaction, not this page's own editorial judgment -- but it's a fair question to ask directly if you're evaluating how a similar project might affect county services or your own land's value nearby.

What to verify before signing a solar or wind lease in Clarke County

• Confirm there is no county zoning or siting ordinance to rely on -- Clarke County is not one of the four Alabama counties (Baldwin, Cherokee, DeKalb, Etowah) with local-act zoning authority over wind or solar siting, so any setback, noise, or decommissioning protection has to come from your own lease or easement contract, not a county ordinance.
• Ask whether a lease offer is connected to the existing Walker Springs cluster (Origis Energy, near Alma and Gainestown) or a separate, newer proposal -- the track record and typical terms may differ.
• Get decommissioning and land-restoration obligations spelled out explicitly in any lease -- with no county ordinance requiring it, that protection exists only if the contract includes it.
• If you're a nearby (not leasing) landowner, ask the Clarke County Commission directly whether any tax-abatement agreement is under discussion for a specific project, since that -- not a zoning hearing -- is this county's actual point of public negotiation over a solar deal.
• Have any lease, easement, or right-of-way agreement reviewed by an attorney experienced in energy leases before signing -- lease terms for payment escalation, term length, and renewal options vary significantly by developer and are not standardized by any Alabama county ordinance here.