Farmers are being warned to seek advice on lease values before entering into agreements for battery storage systems.

Over the past number of weeks, the Irish Farmers Journal has been inundated with queries from landowners who have been approached by developers seeking to lease their land to build battery energy storage systems.

Developers are typically seeking land next to substations to install large batteries to store electricity. The value of a system lease depends on several factors, namely how many megawatts (MW) of storage can be installed on a site.

Lease agreements can be made on a per-megawatt basis. For example, if a 3ac site could accommodate a 60MW system valued at €1,200/MW, the farmer’s lease value would be €24,000/ac per year for 30 to 40 years.

Deals

Recently, lease deals have been secured for up to €25,000/ac for more than 30 years. However, in these cases, similar to the above example, a large system with a high MW storage capacity is set to be developed on a relatively small area.

Other projects may be spread out over a larger site, which can lower the value of the lease. Deals for leases on a per-acre basis have also been reached and appear to be the preferred option by developers. However, the value of per-acre lease values varies widely.

Some farmers are being offered deals ranging from €5,000/ac to €20,000/ac and depending on the site and project, these values may be appropriate. However, other farmers have been offered as low as €1,200/ac.