Wind farms lift rural property values, study finds, and boost local schools, too

Wind projects lead to better local schools and lift neighbouring property values by about 3 per cent, according to a surprising new piece of research out of the US this week. 

The study, Uplifting Winds in the journal Energy Research & Social Science, shows that in the decade after a wind farm starts working, there is a rise in spending on students in public schools, a small but significant fall in student-teacher ratios, and a lift in house prices.

This is particularly for homes further than 3.2 km from a turbine, but the wealth effect is also felt by those within that zone as well.

Surprisingly, the authors found that the bigger the wind farm, the bigger the positive impact on house prices and schools as more money flowed through from taxes into public services.

The US example doesn’t perfectly map onto Australian experiences, but the phenomenon of wind projects lifting property prices is already being felt here.

Former New South Wales (NSW) farmer Charlie Prell sold his family farm in 2023. 

They advertised the 2000 acre farm as coming with about $220,000 in annual rental income from 18 turbines for the Crookwell 2 wind farm.

Prell believes, and his real estate agent has agreed, that the turbines added up to an extra $1.5 million to the final sale price of $12.5 million for the property.

“People who will spend that much buying land are very savvy business people and they understand the value of the 30 year lease we signed, which started in 2020,” Prell told Renew Economy.

But what is even more interesting is the flow-on effects for the properties next to his, which didn’t host any turbines.  

“There was a small family farm, about 800 acres, not quite surrounded but nearly in the middle of our farm. It sold earlier this year for, I think, $3.5 million. It was an unbelievable amount of money,” he says.

“It’s an unbelievably good price for a small block which you couldn’t do anything economic on by itself, and it has no turbines on it. They are able to get a neighbour payment. That flies in the face of neighbouring properties being devalued by wind farms.”

Prell’s experience is backed by a real estate report in 2022, which produced data showing six local government areas (LGAs) in Victoria and NSW that hosted renewable energy projects charting five-year property price growth of 35-51 per cent.  

The report speculated that lower power prices in an era of high inflation – even though developers didn’t start offering that kind of neighbour benefit until 2024 – might be behind the rise and included some wilder ideas that electricity prices were influencing where people chose to buy homes.

What it tried, but didn’t quite manage to articulate, was that housing shortages in those areas caused by more economic activity played a role in those eye-watering property values.

Is this another anti-renewables myth debunked?

Prell’s real-world experience – and beefed up retirement fund – and the US research pushes against many years of evidence-free Internet assertions that renewable energy development will have a catastrophic effect on most Australians’ sole source of wealth: the property they own. 

Renew Economy has been reporting on these claims since its very first year of publication, both the assertions and studies showing there is a dip in property values during the uncertain and uncomfortable period of development and construction and a recovery afterwards. 

But even today, particularly for communities in the throes of renewable energy zone (REZ) development, the benefits of hot property prices and better schools will still seem far off: Much like the renovators on Grand Designs who, half-way through an episode are dead-eyed, broke and divorced yet contractually required to put up with host Kevin McCloud’s jolly negging of their dream-turned-nightmare.

The roof still isn’t on, winter is arriving, and the promised prosperous future is a long way off.

For example, three NSW REZs are due to release cumulative impact studies that councils and locals hope will show just how painful the changes will be, while communities still struggle to get the answers they want from the entities pushing infrastructure through.

Direct payments to farmers hosting projects in the National Energy Market could be $7.7-9.7 billion between 2024 and 2050, with another $1.9 billion going to regional communities and councils, estimated a Farmers for Climate Action report last year.

Studies like the Uplifting Winds research from the US are proving there is life after the renovation.

The study’s coauthors Eric Brunner, a professor of economics and policy with the UConn School of Public Policy along with colleagues Ben Hoen from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and David Schwegman from American University have been working on this idea for several years. 

In 2023 they showed there is a real drop in house prices during wind project development and construction, but that lifts in the three to five years after wind farms start operating. 

In the bigger 2025 piece of research, they theorise that property values are capturing the effects of more money flowing into the rural areas where wind farms are usually developed.

“We can speculate that there are some positive aspects of school districts with wind that are being capitalized into home prices,” the co-authors wrote in their 2025 research. 

“These positive effects may arise because of the impact of wind energy projects on employment, the local property tax base and/or the revenue they generate through payments in lieu of taxes—revenue that can be then used to increase local public services, reduce property tax rates, or both.”

The impact on schools is stark, and measurable because in the US “school districts are just about the smallest independent government with taxing authority”, Brunner said in a statement.

The US wind farms led to approximately $US800 more local revenue per pupil, a $US703 rise in total school spending per pupil, and a $US203 increase in current school expenditures per pupil.

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