Wind and Solar Land Leasing in Moffat County, Colorado

A named solar project built on former coal-mine land

One of the more concrete developments tied to Moffat County's coal transition is a roughly 145-megawatt solar project developed by Juwi and built on land associated with the Colowyo Mine -- one of the two mines that supplied Craig Station and, per the hub, filed a WARN notice and laid off 133 workers as it wound down in late 2025. Reporting describes roughly 1,000 acres committed to the solar array itself, with an additional 160 leased acres supporting transmission infrastructure. That transmission buildout is tied to a much larger regional project intended to carry as much as 3,000 megawatts of Wyoming wind power toward major Southwestern load centers, including Las Vegas and parts of Southern California -- meaning Moffat County's land is positioned as a transmission corridor for power generated elsewhere, not just a site for local generation.

Separately, Tri-State Generation and Transmission -- the same utility that owns Craig Station and negotiated the $70 million transition settlement described on the hub -- has stated a preferred resource plan to add roughly 1,250 megawatts of renewable energy and storage capacity across its service territory between 2026 and 2031, including about 700 megawatts of new wind and solar specifically. Moffat County, as the site of Tri-State's largest coal asset, is a plausible location for some of that build-out, though no additional named Moffat-specific Tri-State project beyond the Colowyo-adjacent solar array was confirmed during this research pass.

What this means for land near the coal-transition corridor

If you're evaluating land near Craig, the Colowyo or Trapper mine sites, or existing transmission infrastructure, understand that this is an area under active energy-infrastructure development, not a settled rural landscape. That cuts in a landowner's favor if a parcel is well-positioned for a future lease -- transmission proximity is one of the most valuable site characteristics for a new wind or solar project -- but it also means construction traffic, new easements, and substation or line siting are realistic near-term possibilities for land in the corridor, separate from ordinary agricultural use.

As with any Colorado county, Moffat County's own zoning process still governs how a new project gets sited locally: the Moffat County Planning Department handles the permitted-use and conditional-use review for a wind or solar project the way it would any other land use, per the hub's existing zoning coverage. Because much of the renewable activity described here is tied to former mine land and large-scale regional transmission rather than a scattering of independent small leases, verify with the Planning Department and, where relevant, Tri-State or the project developer directly whether a specific parcel is actually part of an active project area versus simply nearby.

What to verify before treating a lease as bankable

• Whether a specific parcel is inside an active project's leased footprint (the solar array or the transmission corridor) or merely adjacent to one -- proximity alone doesn't create lease value.
• The lease payment structure and whether it differs for solar-array acreage versus transmission-easement acreage, since the two typically pay very differently.
• Current status of Tri-State's regional renewable buildout plan (1,250 MW by 2031) and whether any additional Moffat County-specific project has since been announced beyond what's covered here.
• How the Moffat County Planning Department classifies a proposed project under its zoning code, and what conditional-use review or public hearing process would apply.