Wind & Solar Leasing in Jasper County, IN: Carpenter Wind Farm

If you own land in southern or central Jasper County, a wind-lease conversation isn't hypothetical -- this county is part of Indiana's real wind corridor, with an active 198-megawatt project under construction and a dedicated zoning overlay district written specifically for wind farms. Here's the landscape before you sign anything.

This page covers what's specific to Jasper County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

Jasper County is genuinely wind-development territory

Unlike many Indiana counties where wind and solar leasing is a distant hypothetical, Jasper County sits inside one of the state's most heavily wind-developed corridors, alongside neighboring Benton and White counties. The current, active project is the Carpenter Wind Farm, developed by EDP Renewables near the town of Remington in southern Jasper County: a roughly 198-megawatt facility expected to include about 45 turbines, backed by a 20-year power purchase agreement with NIPSCO. The project received Board of Zoning Appeals approval for its primary turbine layout -- 33 primary turbines plus two alternate sites -- in November 2024, and construction began in early 2025.

Jasper County is also one of three counties, together with White and Benton, whose land hosts turbines from the Meadow Lake Wind Farm complex -- a roughly 801-megawatt assemblage that ranks among the larger wind developments in the Midwest. Between Meadow Lake's existing footprint and Carpenter's active construction, a meaningful share of southern and central Jasper County's rural land base already sits inside, or adjacent to, an operating or under-construction wind project.

A dedicated Wind Farm Overlay district in the zoning code

Jasper County's Unified Development Code includes a Wind Farm Overlay (WFO) district with its own development standards -- a zoning tool most Indiana counties don't need because they don't have this level of wind-development activity. That overlay is the mechanism through which turbine layouts, setbacks, and related site standards for a project like Carpenter get reviewed, separate from the county's general agricultural or residential zoning districts. If you're weighing a lease offer, ask directly whether your parcel falls inside the WFO's mapped boundary, since that affects what a developer can pursue on your land as a matter of the zoning code itself, not just the terms of a private lease.

The county commissioners have also spoken publicly about anticipated road improvements and economic-development dollars tied to Carpenter -- a sign that the county government views this level of wind development as an ongoing economic relationship, not a one-time event. That context is useful for a landowner deciding whether to engage with a lease offer: a developer already operating in the county has an established relationship with local officials, for better or worse, that a first-time developer elsewhere might not.

Organized local opposition exists -- know both sides before you sign

Jasper County's level of wind activity has also generated real, organized pushback, particularly over turbine setback distances from property lines and homes. Local reporting centered on Rensselaer describes a sustained opposition effort tied to proposed and existing turbine siting in the county. If you're a nonparticipating landowner near a proposed turbine, this pushback is worth understanding as context for how contested siting decisions can get -- and if you're a participating landowner considering a lease, it's a reminder that a project's timeline and final footprint can shift in response to that kind of organized resistance, even after initial approvals are in hand.

Whether you're being approached with a lease offer or you're simply concerned about a project near your property line, get the specifics in writing directly from the Jasper County Plan Commission -- current WFO district boundaries, any pending rezoning or variance applications nearby, and the status of the Carpenter project's build-out -- rather than relying on secondhand accounts of what's been approved.

Wind and Solar Energy Leasing in Jasper County, Indiana

Jasper County is genuinely wind-development territory

A dedicated Wind Farm Overlay district in the zoning code

Organized local opposition exists -- know both sides before you sign

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