Solar Leasing on Land in Orangeburg County, South Carolina

A genuine multi-project solar cluster, not a one-off

Orangeburg County's own local press has described the county as a 'leader in renewable energy' in South Carolina, and the numbers back that framing up: over roughly the past three years, ten separate solar projects have been announced in the county, with developers collectively promising $503.5 million in investment and 460 megawatts of generating capacity. That's a genuinely large, sustained cluster of activity for a single county -- on the scale of a real secondary land-use economy running alongside Orangeburg's traditional row-crop and watermelon farming and its interstate-logistics growth story covered on our county hub.

Specific recent and current projects confirmed this research pass include a $70 million solar farm near Cope covering roughly 500 acres of panels plus a 25-acre battery-storage facility, with construction expected in the second half of 2025 and commercial operation targeted by the end of 2026, and an $85 million project on Cannon Bridge Road near Riley Road from Virginia-based developer Brewer Renewables. Both are large enough, in dollar terms and acreage, to meaningfully affect land values and lease-market comparables in their immediate vicinity.

The Cordova project: solar built to power a data center

The most significant single project found this pass is a 100-megawatt solar plant near Cordova, just outside Orangeburg, being developed by Silicon Ranch in partnership with Central Electric Power Cooperative on a footprint of 800 to 1,000 acres. What makes this project distinctive isn't just its scale -- it's the buyer: the facility is being built specifically to supply renewable-energy credits for Meta's first data center in South Carolina, located in neighboring Aiken County, as the 18th deal in an ongoing partnership between Silicon Ranch and Meta representing more than 1,500 megawatts of renewable capacity nationally and roughly $2.5 billion in Silicon Ranch investment.

This connects Orangeburg County's land market to the same corporate-data-center-driven renewable-energy demand pattern showing up as a recurring theme in other fast-growing parts of South Carolina, even though the data center itself sits across the county line. For a landowner in the Cordova/southern Orangeburg County area, that means a large, well-capitalized corporate offtaker with an established local track record is already active in the immediate area -- a meaningfully different negotiating environment than a county with no confirmed large-scale solar buyer at all.

What to check before signing an Orangeburg County solar lease

1. Confirm the current zoning district and any solar-specific use standards for your parcel with the Orangeburg County Zoning Department -- a large-scale solar facility is typically a conditional or special-exception use even in a county with countywide zoning, not necessarily allowed as of right.
2. Ask whether the developer pitching your land has a signed corporate offtake agreement (like the Silicon Ranch/Meta arrangement near Cordova) or is speculatively developing without one -- a project with a confirmed buyer is generally further along toward actually being built and generating lease payments.
3. Get the lease's decommissioning terms in writing -- who removes panels, racking, and any battery-storage or substation equipment at the end of the lease term, and whether a bond or other financial assurance backs that obligation.
4. Confirm your land's soil classification and current agricultural use before comparing a solar lease against continued farming -- with this many projects competing for land countywide, per-acre lease rates and terms are genuinely comparable across nearby deals, so ask what similar-sized nearby tracts have actually been offered.
5. Check interconnection queue status with the relevant utility independently rather than relying on the developer's representation, since interconnection delays are a common reason even well-financed solar projects stall after a lease is signed.