Meteorological Tower Agreement for Wind Measurement Tools

Summary

This template is a meteorological tower agreement for wind measurement tools, and permits a wind energy company to erect one or more anemometers (wind measurement tools) on meteorological towers (met towers) on the landowner's property to determine whether it should enter into a wind lease. This template includes practical guidance and drafting notes. Before a wind farm development is built, a wind farm developer must find land suitable to build out the development. Generally this involves finding a large area of land—sometimes thousands of acres—in a part of the country where wind is steady and constant. This land is often located in rural areas. To determine whether a site is compatible with wind farm development, a wind farm developer must measure available wind over a long period of time—generally one to three years. Met towers are used for this purpose. Met towers are built in different heights, to accommodate local zoning and weather conditions. However, most are between 100 and 300 feet tall, with the taller towers used to approximate wind conditions at the precise hub level of a future wind turbine. A future wind farm development may utilize several met towers to determine wind conditions over a large area. Having wind speed and frequency data allows the wind farm developer to judge suitability of the property, plan for future energy generation capacity, and get financing to build the wind farm. Some met towers remain on a property after the wind farm is built to allow the developer to easily measure weather conditions. This template grants the wind development company the right to build met towers on the owner's property, and to collect wind data that will be critical to the future build-out of a wind farm development. More importantly, though, this template also gives the wind farm developer the exclusive right to negotiate a wind lease with a landowner during the term of the agreement. This protects the wind farm developer's interests while also providing some level of certainty to the landowner. For a list of key resources covering major energy-related topics, see Summer Associate Resource Kit: Energy & Utilities. For a full listing of key content covering fundamental energy and utilities related topics, see Energy & Utilities Fundamentals Resource Kit. For more information on wind farm development and wind energy leases, see First Year Associate Resource Kit: Energy & Utilities. For a full listing of related climate change content, see Climate Change Resource Kit. See also Wind Energy Leases and Energy Real Estate Resource Kit. For examples of a wind lease and agreements related to wind leases, see Wind Energy Lease, Wind Energy Due Diligence and Feasibility/Meteorological Studies Option Agreement, Site Rules Form (Wind Lease) , and Wind Lease and Grant of Easements Agreement.