Wind and Solar Energy Leasing in Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska

A real, contested project -- and a board that ruled utility-scale solar is currently prohibited

The Situla Solar Energy Project, developed by California-based Dunlieh Energy on land belonging to the Preston Trust in southwest Scotts Bluff County (roughly nine miles south of Highway 92, near County Road X), proposed well over 600,000 solar panels generating up to 400 megawatts across about 1,500 acres. The landowner's family selected the site largely because of transmission lines already running through the property -- a real, practical factor that also matters to any landowner elsewhere in the county considering a lease, since proximity to existing transmission infrastructure is typically what makes a parcel commercially attractive to a utility-scale developer in the first place.

In May 2024, following a heated public hearing, the Scotts Bluff County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 to reject the project's conditional use permit application. Commissioner Charlie Knapper's motion to deny cited a specific legal rationale worth understanding on its own terms: utility-scale solar power is not listed or defined anywhere in the county's current zoning regulations, and the board's position was that an undefined use is, by that omission, a prohibited one. Situla/Dunlieh subsequently renewed its effort to revive the project at the same site, but a later attempt to bring the permit back before the board also failed. As of this research, the county's zoning code had not been amended to add a utility-scale solar definition or use category.

What this means for a landowner evaluating a wind or solar lease offer here

The practical takeaway isn't that solar or wind development is legally impossible in Scotts Bluff County -- it's that, as of this research, the path runs through a conditional use permit process the board has already shown a willingness to deny on definitional grounds, in a politically contested public-hearing environment. A developer's lease offer that assumes routine county approval should be weighed against this real, recent precedent rather than treated as a formality. A landowner should also confirm whether transmission-line proximity (the factor that made the Situla site attractive) applies to their own parcel, since that's a genuine driver of a project's economics and a developer's site selection, separate from the zoning question.

Small-scale precedent exists too: the Nebraska Public Power District has operated its own solar installation on a 25-year lease with the City of Scottsbluff, next to the city's soccer complex -- a municipal, in-city project rather than a county-zoned unincorporated parcel, but evidence that solar generation itself is not foreign to the area, even as utility-scale private development on unincorporated county land has run into the definitional roadblock described above.

What to check before signing a wind or solar lease

1. Confirm directly with Scotts Bluff County Building and Zoning whether utility-scale solar (and, separately, wind energy conversion systems) have since been added as a defined, permitted, or conditional use in the zoning code -- this status can change and materially affects whether a project on your land is even legally reviewable.
2. If a lease is contingent on a conditional use permit being granted, understand the county board has denied at least one such application on record and get legal advice on how the lease allocates risk (deposits, termination rights, timeline) if the permit is denied again.
3. Ask the developer directly what transmission-line access exists at or near your specific parcel -- this is a real, documented factor in how at least one developer selected a site in this county.
4. Track whether the rejected Situla/Dunlieh project, or any successor utility-scale proposal, resumes at the county board, since public opposition and board composition have already shaped one outcome here and could shape the next.