Wind and Solar Leasing in Natrona County, Wyoming

The county's own WECS and utility-scale solar permit processes

Natrona County is one of roughly eleven Wyoming counties that has adopted its own wind energy siting regulations under W.S. 18-5-501 through 18-5-513. A commercial Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS) project requires a project permit with a filing fee of $300 per turbine plus a $100 notice fee, and the applicant -- not the county -- bears the cost of notifying every property owner within a 5-mile radius of the project's exterior boundary. That radius reaches well beyond a project's actual footprint, so a landowner miles from a proposed wind farm can still receive formal notice and a chance to weigh in.

Utility-scale solar runs through a separate track: a Conditional Use Permit under the county's own Utility Scale Solar System Regulations. Even though solar is generally a permitted use within the RAM (Ranching, Agriculture, and Mining) district described on the county hub, a CUP application still has to address drainage impacts to upstream and downstream properties, soil erosion, dust control, and vegetation damage and revegetation, plus supporting studies -- a Waste Management Plan, a Traffic Impact Study, a Soils Mitigation Plan, and a Drainage Plan. This is a real, document-heavy process, not a rubber stamp, and the two case studies below show it can go either way.

The default setback for a solar panel array from a residential zone is 1.25 miles -- but it is not fixed. Natrona County granted the approved Dinosolar project (a 240-megawatt system on 1,170 acres of leased private land near Bar Nunn and Mills, approved in 2020) a variance reducing that setback to just 500 feet. That's a substantial gap between the default rule and what the county has actually allowed in practice, and it means the 1.25-mile figure is a starting point for negotiation, not a guaranteed buffer for a neighboring landowner.

When the process says no: the 2025 Haystack Solar denial

In February 2025, Natrona County commissioners voted 3-2 to deny a permit for EG Haystack Solar LLC's proposed 199-megawatt solar array paired with a 100-megawatt battery storage facility on 2,010 acres of private ranch land about 24 miles northwest of Casper, just south of U.S. Highway 26. The vote came after a 7.5-hour hearing that ran past midnight, with dozens of area residents testifying against the project. County staff and local fire districts flagged real, specific technical concerns -- fire response capability, drainage, and site reclamation -- and residents raised worries about the project crossing two significant water draws, with potential contamination risk, along with traffic safety and property values. Commissioners concluded the applicant's mitigation offers didn't close those gaps.

For a Natrona County landowner or buyer, the Haystack denial is a useful real-world data point: a large utility-scale solar CUP here is genuinely contested and can fail even after a developer has invested in an application, and drainage/fire-response/reclamation adequacy -- not just setback distance -- are real grounds the county has used to say no.

When a wind project stalls after approval: Chevron's idle Casper Wind Farm

The flip side of the Haystack story is a wind project that cleared county approval and still never delivered power. An 11-turbine wind farm north of Evansville -- each turbine roughly 240 feet tall and weighing about 450,000 pounds -- was built but never secured a purchase agreement with PacifiCorp/Rocky Mountain Power, and sat idle for roughly two years. In March 2025, Chevron Power and Energy Management notified the Natrona County Board of Commissioners it would decommission the entire project, and submitted a formal decommissioning plan on June 30, 2025, as required by the county's own permit conditions. The removal timeline runs through the end of 2026, with site reclamation, agricultural-impact mitigation, and erosion-control monitoring continuing out to 2029.

This matters for anyone evaluating land near a wind project here: Natrona County's WECS permits build in a decommissioning-plan requirement and, in practice, trigger points tied to prolonged non-operation or a failure to transmit power offsite -- and this case shows the county actually enforces that requirement rather than leaving idle turbines standing indefinitely. If you're buying land near an existing wind project, ask whether it has an active power purchase agreement, not just an approved permit -- an approved, built project is not the same as an operating one.

Wyoming's wind generation tax -- a real cost unique to this state

Wyoming is the only state with a wind-specific electricity production tax: $1 per megawatt-hour of electricity actually produced, in effect since January 1, 2012, with a three-year exemption for a project's first three years of production. Revenue splits 60% to the county and 40% to the state. This is separate from, and doesn't replace, whatever private lease payment a landowner negotiates directly with a developer for turbine siting, access roads, or transmission easements -- those terms are privately negotiated and typically confidential. If you're a landowner being approached for a wind or solar lease in Natrona County, get the actual lease document and understand which payments apply to you as the landowner, separately from this state-level tax that the developer pays.

What this means before you lease or buy

1. Confirm whether a proposed project already holds a Natrona County WECS permit or utility-scale solar CUP, or is still in the notification and hearing stage -- that tells you how far along county approval actually is, and whether the county's own fire, drainage, and reclamation review has been satisfied.
2. Don't assume the 1.25-mile solar setback applies as a hard rule -- Natrona County has granted variances down to 500 feet for an approved project, so check the specific approved conditions for any project near land you're evaluating.
3. For land near an already-built wind or solar project, verify it's actually operating (an active power purchase agreement, not just a built facility) -- an approved, constructed project can still sit idle for years and later be decommissioned under the county's own permit terms.
4. Keep Wyoming's per-megawatt-hour wind tax (a state/county revenue mechanism) separate in your thinking from your own lease payment as a landowner -- they are not the same number.