Solar and Wind Leasing in York County, Nebraska

The statewide floor: recording, a Power Review Board filing, and decommissioning security

Nebraska Revised Statute 66-911.01 requires any instrument creating a solar or wind land right to be recorded with the county register of deeds and to include the parties' names, a legal description of the land, and the nature of the interest created -- that applies to a solar lease exactly as it does to a wind lease. A title search or a direct request to the York County Clerk should surface any lease or easement already recorded against a specific parcel; don't rely on a seller's or developer's verbal summary of what's been signed.

Legislative Bill 399, approved in April 2024, layered a state-level check on top of county zoning: a developer of a privately developed renewable energy project must file an application with the Nebraska Power Review Board, which schedules a public hearing (generally within 60 days) and gives notice to affected parties, and the bill also set a deadline -- extended on the floor from three years to six -- for a developer to post the decommissioning-security bond required as part of a project's decommissioning plan. Ask any developer for its Power Review Board filing directly; it will show a decommissioning timeline independent of whatever York County's own ordinance requires.

York County's four-class solar ordinance, and why the setback that matters may not be yours

York County's Article 15 Solar Energy Conversion System Regulations, finalized after nearly four years of debate, sorts solar facilities into four size classes with setbacks ranging from 75 feet for the smallest (Class 1) up to a half-mile -- roughly 2,640 feet -- for the largest, utility-scale commercial systems (Class 4) from non-participating homes, schools, and churches. The detail that catches landowners off guard: that half-mile setback is measured from a neighboring non-participating landowner's home, not from the edge of your own leased parcel. That means acreage you've leased to a developer can still be substantially unusable for the project if it falls within a neighbor's setback radius, regardless of how much of your own land the lease covers.

A commercial system also carries its own financial-assurance requirements under the ordinance: a decommissioning bond set at 100% of an independent, county-approved evaluation of removal and restoration costs, held from the date of approval through final decommissioning, plus a separate escrow account -- required at the time a conditional use permit application is filed, and not less than $25,000 -- to cover the county's own review and approval costs. Ask to see both figures in the actual permit file, not just a developer's summary, before assuming either has been posted.

The K-Junction lesson: a signed lease didn't guarantee the project could be built

This isn't a hypothetical risk -- it already happened here. Omaha Public Power District had signed leases with York County landowners for the roughly 2,800- to 3,000-acre K-Junction Solar Project near McCool Junction before the county's new setback rules took effect. Once the half-mile Class 4 setback passed, OPPD stated publicly that the regulations effectively banned the project as designed and, in its own words, arbitrarily banned the use of 90% of the property that landowners had voluntarily leased. For anyone who had already signed a K-Junction lease, that meant a real, recorded agreement suddenly covering land the project could no longer use -- through no fault of the landowner's and with no guarantee the lease's payment terms adjusted to match.

The practical lesson for any new offer in York County: signing a lease commits your land, but it does not control whether the county's zoning will let the project actually be built at the scale the developer originally proposed. Before signing, find out whether your lease payment is fixed regardless of whether the facility is ever built at full size, what the contract says about regulatory changes that shrink or block the project (a force-majeure or regulatory-risk clause), and how the lease can be terminated or renegotiated if the county's setback rules change again -- something York County's own recent history shows is not a remote possibility here.

Before signing a solar or wind lease offer in York County

1. Ask the developer which of the four Article 15 classes the proposed facility falls under, and get the exact setback distance that applies -- in writing, from York County Planning and Zoning, not only from the developer.
2. Have the county confirm your parcel's own setback exposure from neighboring non-participating homes, schools, or churches -- a large leased acreage can still be mostly unusable if a neighbor's setback radius reaches across it.
3. Request the project's current Nebraska Power Review Board filing to see its public-hearing record and decommissioning-security deadline.
4. Confirm the decommissioning bond (100% of an approved project-evaluation cost) and the conditional-use-permit escrow (at least $25,000) are actually on file with the county, not merely required on paper.
5. Pull the recorded lease or easement instrument from the York County Clerk if you're buying land that may already carry one, and don't rely on a summary.
6. Have an attorney experienced in Nebraska renewable-energy leases review payment terms, regulatory-risk and termination clauses, and what happens to your payments if a future zoning change -- as already happened with K-Junction -- shrinks or blocks the project.