Wind and Solar Land Leasing in Audrain County, Missouri

Firebrick Wind: roughly 30,000 acres leased, a county development agreement, and a change of developer

The Firebrick Wind Project is sited across the Townships of Prairie, Cuivre, and Linn in Audrain County, with a proposed capacity of up to 380 MW across an estimated 70 to 95 turbines ranging from 4 to 5.5 MW each. The project originated with Omaha-based Tenaska, which signed its first landowner lease in February 2020; Cordelio Power acquired the project from Tenaska in late February 2021, with Tenaska continuing under a development-services agreement. In January 2022, Cordelio signed a Commercial Wind Energy Project Development Agreement directly with the Audrain County Commission -- the mechanism that governs how the project's turbines are sited, built, and operated in a county with no zoning ordinance to route the project through instead. As of March 2023, opposition tracking put roughly 30,000 acres under lease in the county for approximately 100 turbines, a figure that may have shifted as the project has moved toward construction.

If you're evaluating a parcel that's already under an executed Firebrick lease, confirm directly with Cordelio (or its local land agent) whether the lease is at the option stage or the operating stage -- payment structures differ substantially between the two -- and ask specifically about the lease's term length, any turbine or access-road easement location on the parcel, and decommissioning obligations at the end of the lease term. We could not confirm the specific decommissioning-bond terms of the county development agreement during this research pass; request that language directly from the County Commission or from Cordelio before treating a lease offer as final.

Ameren's solar buildout: Vandalia, Huck Finn, Envoy, and a pending 2026 expansion

Ameren Missouri has built or proposed several solar facilities in Audrain County. The Vandalia Renewable Energy Center is a 50 MW facility covering roughly 420 acres, including access roads, sized to serve about 10,000 Ameren Missouri customers; it was financed through a Chapter 100 arrangement, a Missouri economic-development tool under which Ameren conveys title to the completed facility to the county, which then leases the project back to Ameren -- a structure used specifically to generate a local property-tax abatement for the developer while keeping formal ownership with the county. The Huck Finn Solar Project is a larger, roughly 200 MW facility spanning both Audrain and Ralls Counties, approved by the Missouri Public Service Commission for a certificate of convenience and necessity. A separate Envoy Solar project, covering roughly 438 acres and approximately 128,000 panels, has also been sited in the county.

As of this review, Ameren has an active, pending 2026 case before the Missouri Public Service Commission covering an additional roughly 175 MW solar field adjacent to the existing Huck Finn project (spanning Audrain and Ralls Counties) and a roughly 200 MW battery storage facility at Ameren's Audrain Energy Center on Route P near Vandalia. The PSC set a public-intervention deadline of June 12, 2026 for this case, with a staff recommendation due shortly after -- meaning this specific expansion's approval status should be confirmed directly with the PSC's Electronic Filing Information System (EFIS) before treating it as finalized, since it was still moving through the regulatory process as of this research pass.

No zoning to clear here -- but organized local opposition is real

Because Audrain County has no zoning ordinance, neither the wind nor the solar projects described above went through a county rezoning or special-use-permit hearing the way they would in a zoned county -- wind development proceeds under the direct development agreement described above, and utility-scale solar and battery-storage facilities require a certificate of convenience and necessity from the Missouri Public Service Commission rather than a county land-use approval. That doesn't mean there's no local process or no local reaction: a grassroots opposition group, MoSaysNo, has organized specifically against solar and wind development in Audrain and neighboring counties, and separately against the unrelated Grain Belt Express high-voltage transmission line, which is proposed to cross Audrain County under eminent-domain authority rather than voluntary landowner leases -- a materially different legal mechanism from the wind and solar leases described above, and one worth distinguishing clearly if a specific parcel is affected by either.

• Confirm whether a specific lease offer is with an active, currently-operating project (Firebrick, Vandalia REC, Huck Finn) or a newer, still-pending one (the 2026 PSC solar/battery-storage case), since approval timelines and project certainty differ substantially between the two.
• Ask whether the lease payment structure is a flat per-acre rate, a per-turbine/per-megawatt royalty, or a combination, and whether payments begin at signing, at construction, or at commercial operation.
• For any parcel near the proposed Grain Belt Express transmission corridor, confirm whether the parcel is affected by that separate eminent-domain process rather than a voluntary wind or solar lease -- the two are commonly discussed together locally but involve very different landowner rights.
• Request the current decommissioning and land-restoration terms in writing, and confirm who bears removal costs if a project is abandoned or reaches the end of its lease term.