April 6, 2022 |
Carbon County’s share of wind energy production tax for calendar year 2021 was $651,641.19. The state treasurer’s office issued the disbursement on March 15th.
The payment was for 268.3 megawatt hours of capacity from 250 wind turbines at four different sites in the county: Skyline Renewables, Rock River I, Seven Mile Hill and Dunlap.
Statewide, the total generation tax reported was $4.2 million. By state statute, 60 percent of the revenues is distributed to the counties where the generating facilities. The other 40 percent is deposited in the state’s general fund.
Each county’s share is based on the assessed value of wind generation site compared to the total assessed value of all generating facilities in the state. Carbon County’s percentage of assessed value is 25.4%. The total share of wind production taxes was assessed at more than $1 million. The state received $434,000. The remaining $650,000 and change went to the county.
Not all the working turbines in Carbon County contributed to the tax receipts. TB Flats, Ekola Wind Farm and Foote Creek are on the three-year tax free timeline granted under state law to startups.
Of the 250 tax-eligible turbines in Carbon County, each paid an average of $2,606 in wind energy production taxes based on total collections. That’s about half of the state average. Statewide, individual turbines paid more than $5,100 on average.
The assessed taxes are based on self-reporting. Bigfoot 99 submitted a question to Christie Yurek at Wyoming’s Administrative Service Office asking how the state verifies the production numbers filed by the wind energy industry. We have not received a response yet.
In addition to the $1 per megawatt hour wind energy production tax, companies producing power with turbines also pay property taxes.
Meanwhile, oil, gas and coal companies paid 10 times more in severances taxes than the $4.2 million wind energy companies paid in the production tax. Mineral severance taxes amounted to $43 million in 2021.
Pictured above: Wind turbines in Carbon County. Photo by Jim O’Reilly/Bigfoot 99.
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