Vista Mountain Wind Project

Work on the Vista Mountain Wind Prospect commenced with discussions by a promoter  with a core group of landowners on top of the mountain in 2008.  In 2010 some of these families banded together and paid the cost of installation of a meteorological tower to gather wind speed measurement from different elevations up to 200 feet, and to pay for the cost of some technical analysis of the resulting data.  In 2015 the project promoter started marketing the project to the wind industry, and written offers of interest from five different wind companies were received and reviewed.  The core landowner families decided that a proposal by EDF Renewables seemed to be the best fit, and most likely to result in construction of a strong project.  EDF Renewables is one of the largest wind power companies in the world.  EDF Renewables has signed a letter of intent with the project promoter and a core landowner group comprising about 7500 acres, and is now in the process of determining the level of interest among other owners of land on and around Vista Mountain, stretching northwest from Highway 84 nearly all the way to the community of Indian Gap, bounded on the west by the Mills County line.  A competing wind company has already leased much of the mountaintop acreage to the west of that County line for a separate wind project of its own.

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            If sufficient acreage is acquired for this project, it will probably be built in 2019.  The promoter has designed the project to be comprised for royalty purposes of an area-wide unit which is pooled for royalty payments.  The acreage would not be pooled surface damage payments, which would go directly to those landowners impacted by construction.  The purpose of pooling acreage for wind royalty payments is so that all landowners having land above a qualifying elevation will be compensated equally, by the acre, such that there are no individual winners or losers, just because a turbine is sited on one side of a fence or the other.  The project promoter practices oil and gas law, primarily, and observes that this is the way oil fields are often developed in secondary recovery, by the formation of a field-wide unit, because oil wells drain hydrocarbons across fence lines.  In the same way, wind turbines use wind from across fence lines, as there must be a certain space allowed for wake turbulence to dissipate before hitting the next turbine, or else the “prop-wash” will be harmful to efficiency of operation.  The promoter considers that even if landowner airspace is only being used for turbulence dissipation to restore smooth laminar air flow for the next turbine, the landowner without turbines should be compensated for such use of their airspace.  Note that this concept is different from that chosen by the developer of the nearby Goldthwaite wind project, which is a “winner take all” payment system, only to those tracts which have turbines.  The Vista Mountain wind project could include more than 100 separate tracts.  Some of these tracts would be so small they would have no turbines or roads, but their acreage would nonetheless participate financially, if they chose to lease. About 125 people attended an April 19, 2017 lunch and presentation at Evant by EDF regarding the proposed project.

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            On this website you will see a short video made by a drone camera of the nearby Goldthwaite wind project, licensed with permission from Getty Images © in order that you may gain some idea of what a similar project would look like at Vista Mountain. The project promoter anticipates a turbine layout to a density of about 175 acres per turbine.  The actual figure could be somewhat higher, depending on setback limitations imposed by participating landowners to distance turbines from residences or other features such as springs or cemeteries needing special protections.  Many of the landowners have elected to be represented in lease negotiations by a team of two lawyers, Nancy Yates of Hamilton and Allen Price of San Angelo, but landowners are free to retain any counsel they desire for lease negotiations.  EDF Renewables will reimburse landowners for reasonable and customary attorney fees in lease negotiations.  The letter of intent with EDF binds the participating Vista Mountain landowner group to negotiate exclusively with their company until July 1, 2017, and to keep confidential until then the negotiation terms.      

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            In the event there should be a failure to reach terms of agreement by July 1, 2017 on the part of a sufficiently large number of landowners, the Letter of Intent may be temporarily extended by several months by mutual agreement between EDF and the core family group, or allowed to lapse.  If the EDF Letter of Intent is allowed to lapse without fruition, the project promoter considers it likely that the Vista Mountain Wind Project will be somewhat indefinitely postponed, because the Federal production tax credit for wind power projects has commenced a five year phaseout, so there will be no Federal tax credit for any wind projects for which construction has not commenced by the end of 2019.  

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            Elsewhere on this website you will see various documents and maps about the project, and a financial impact analysis.  Mills County has two wind projects built and two more in the planning stage.  Vista Mountain would be the first wind project in Hamilton County, and possibly the only one it will ever have, for topographic reasons.  Postings to this website will change from time to time, and project status reports will be provided.  This website is a landowner communication effort by the project promoter, who does not speak on behalf of or represent EDF Renewables.  The promoter has family roots from long ago at Evant, and comes rather often to a ranch house close to town.  Personal visits can be arranged there or at his law office in Austin, if desired.