Wind & Solar Leasing in Brown County, OH: Hillcrest & Nestlewood

If you own or are buying land in Brown County, there's a real chance it sits near an operating utility-scale solar farm rather than a hypothetical one. Two projects -- the 200 MW Amazon Solar Farm Ohio-Hillcrest and the 80 MW Nestlewood Solar Farm -- are already built or under construction on the county's farmland, together spanning parts of at least three townships.

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

Hillcrest: 200 MW, and Ohio's largest solar facility when it went live

The Amazon Solar Farm Ohio-Hillcrest project sits on more than 1,100 privately-owned acres in Green Township, north of Mount Orab. It was one of the first utility-scale solar projects to successfully complete the Ohio Power Siting Board's permitting process, receiving its certificate under Case No. 17-1152-EL-BGN, and began producing power on May 11, 2021 -- at 200 MW, it was the largest solar energy facility in Ohio at the time of its commissioning. The project is owned and operated by Innergex Renewable Energy, with Amazon as the project's power purchaser, which is why the facility carries the Amazon name despite Amazon not owning the underlying land or infrastructure.

For a landowner near Hillcrest, the practical takeaway is that this project has been operating for several years already -- it's a known, permitted, established neighbor rather than a proposal still working through public hearings. If you're buying land adjacent to or near the Hillcrest footprint, ask the seller or county recorder whether any easements (access roads, transmission interconnection, buffer or setback agreements) tied to the project affect the specific parcel you're considering.

Nestlewood: 80 MW, spanning Brown and Clermont Counties

The Nestlewood Solar Farm is a roughly 610-acre, 80 MW project built by Lendlease Energy Development, spanning Lewis and Clark Townships in Brown County and Tate and Franklin Townships in neighboring Clermont County -- about 25 miles east of Cincinnati. The project uses an estimated 300,000 ground-mounted panels and is expected to generate around 175,000 megawatt-hours of electricity annually once fully operational, with construction having broken ground on the Clermont County side of the project footprint.

Because Nestlewood straddles a county line, a landowner near its footprint should be aware that the project involved both Brown and Clermont County review processes and, depending on which township a specific parcel sits in, potentially different local zoning contexts -- Lewis and Clark Townships fall under Brown County's own zoning framework (confirm current status directly, since this research pass could not verify whether Brown County itself has adopted countywide zoning), while Tate and Franklin Townships in Clermont County have their own separate zoning history, including public debate in Clermont County over further large-scale solar development.

If you're evaluating a lease offer, or land near either project

A landowner who receives a solar lease inquiry in Brown County is dealing with an industry that already has two working precedents in the county, not an unknown quantity -- worth asking a prospective developer directly how their terms compare to what's known about Hillcrest and Nestlewood's public approvals, and having any lease reviewed by an attorney experienced in Ohio solar-lease terms before signing, since these agreements typically run for decades and can include decommissioning, easement, and option-renewal terms that are easy to underweight against an attractive upfront payment.

A buyer evaluating land near either project's footprint should check the Brown County Recorder (or, for the Clermont County portion of Nestlewood, the Clermont County Recorder) for any recorded easements, transmission-line rights-of-way, or setback agreements affecting a specific parcel, and confirm with the relevant township whether any additional local solar-siting rules have been adopted since these two projects went through their own approval processes.

Wind and Solar Leasing in Brown County, Ohio

Hillcrest: 200 MW, and Ohio's largest solar facility when it went live

Nestlewood: 80 MW, spanning Brown and Clermont Counties

If you're evaluating a lease offer, or land near either project

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