Farmers warned to look out for 'cowboys' when signing complex renewable energy contracts on farmland
February 19, 2026
Legal experts and renewable energy advocates have warned farmers to be wary of land speculators looking to cash in on the renewable energy boom.
Perth law firm Bailiwick Legal has provided advice to farmers regarding contracts for proposed renewable energy projects on freehold farming land from Yuna in the Mid West to Denmark in WA's Great Southern.
Firm director Philip Brunner said many of the documents were detailed, complex, and weighted for the benefit of the proponent.
"It feels like there are a lot of cowboys out there," he said.
"Like mining, you have a lot of juniors or fly-by-nighters that sort of try to tie up land and then on-sell that to a bigger entity — it feels a bit like that."
Mr Brunner said a number of proponents did not have experience in the production of energy and he expected they would on-sell projects.
Bailiwick Legal director Philip Brunner is concerned farmers are being encouraged to sign unfavourable contracts.
The state government has committed to closing WA's last coal-fired power plant by 2029 in order to reduce carbon emissions.
Advocacy group Sustainable Energy Now said the lack of clarity around WA's proposed transition to renewables could be fuelling speculation in the industry.
Chairman Frasier Maywood said he was not surprised companies were interested in securing leases.
"I had heard of companies that were intending to do that very thing, to try and sign up farmers and then use that as a means of getting a project up or getting others to invest in a project," Mr Maywood said.
"It could be a function of the uncertainty in the electricity market.
"It doesn't surprise me because there are a lot of green projects being hyped at the moment and they will need an enormous amount of electricity, several times what the current [main electricity grid] is."
The state's electricity transmission network, the South West Interconnected System (SWIS), operates as a contested network.
Approximately 30 per cent of the electricity fed into the SWIS is generated by renewable sources.
Mr Maywood said investment in transmission was needed so more renewable projects could be built.
"A wind farm in a particular location may not be able to export all of its power at any given time because of constraints in the network," he said.
"For future projects, if the network is constrained then that represents a risk to investors and they may say: 'Well, we don't want to invest in WA because there is uncertainty on network access arrangements."
Lease agreement structures concerning
Of most concern to Mr Brunner were options to lease agreements that could be exercised anytime within five to seven years.
He said Bailiwick Legal had reviewed a number of option-for-lease documents that offered between $3,000 and $7,000 per megawatt of energy, per year, per turbine.
"Those are today's figures and if a proponent doesn't exercise an option for say seven years, the landholder has locked themself into today's values when in seven years' time those values may have even doubled or tripled given the way electricity prices have moved," he said.
"Those rates are then locked in for the term of the project, which is usually somewhere between 15 and 25 years."
Rather than sign leases or options to lease, Bailiwick Legal is encouraging land owners to grant a licence for proponents to test if the land is suitable for wind turbines.
Sustainable Energy Now said farmers should talk to farm advocacy groups and seek independent legal advice when considering proposals or work with other farmers to develop their own wind farms as proponents.
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