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Texas solar boom brings new lease income to Uvalde farmer
A land lease that pays the farmer $200,000 a year helped keep his operation running through drought, while solar now supplies about a third of Texas power during peak demand, according to Texas solar officials.
BBC Business profiles Steve Cargil, a 67-year-old farmer near Uvalde, Texas, who has farmed the same dry, flat land since 1953 and faced uncertainty after storms destroyed his crops and none of his children wanted to farm full time.
In 2001, Cargil signed a lease for 600 acres, about a quarter of his land, with OCI Energy to build a solar farm. The agreement pays him $200,000 a year, which he says has allowed him to keep farming through a punishing drought and reduce worries about rising costs such as diesel and fertilizer.
Texas has continued accelerating its solar buildout, with the US Energy Information Administration cited as saying that in March of last year, Texas produced more electricity from solar than from coal for the first time. Mark Stover, executive director of the Texas Solar and Storage Association, says solar routinely supplies around a third of electricity used across Texas on hot afternoons when demand peaks.
Stover attributes the growth to factors including cheaper, quicker grid interconnection for solar in Texas, which has a separate power grid, and rising electricity demand driven by population growth. BBC Business also notes Texas overtook California earlier this year to become the largest generator of electricity from solar farms.