Farm size, spatial externalities, and wind energy development

Abstract

The global push for renewable energy must overcome the local challenge of convincing neighboring landowners to lease their properties for wind power. Is this challenge more or less pronounced in rural landscapes with small landholdings? Our theoretical model combines ideas from literatures on the commons, anticommons, and spatial externalities to explain conditions when small landholdings could promote or inhibit voluntary leasing. Empirically, we estimate the effects of landholding size and landscape fragmentation on wind farm uptake across rural areas of the United States over the past 20 years. Evidence from three spatial levels of analysis (counties, square-mile sections, and individual parcels) indicates that areas with more landowners have less installed wind capacity after controlling for windiness, access to transmission lines, and other relevant factors that vary across and within counties. The findings imply that fragmented ownership, which is an overlooked factor in studies of the feasibility of decarbonization, will pose an impediment to future wind expansion on private land as remaining areas without wind development become disproportionately fragmented.