A defensible, transparent approach to the economic and fiscal impact exhibit that utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage projects file with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and other Great Lakes siting authorities — built to survive Commission staff review, intervenor discovery, and the questions that get asked at the town hall.
"The most persuasive economic impact exhibit is not the one with the biggest numbers. It is the one whose numbers hold up when the county board, the intervenors, and the Commission's staff each take their turn asking where they came from."
In Wisconsin, any non-utility solar project of 100 MW or more, and any utility project above the Certificate of Authority cost threshold, needs a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the Public Service Commission. The Commission's Application Filing Requirements for solar generation direct the applicant to describe the project's effects on local government budgets, estimate the revenue to each host community in taxes, shared revenue, or payments in lieu of taxes, describe other community benefits such as local employment, and provide information on the direct, indirect, and induced state and local economic impacts during and after construction. The wind requirements carry a parallel local-government-impacts section, and battery storage is addressed within hybrid solar applications.
Ohio's Power Siting Board rules require the same content in more detail — construction and operating payroll, employment and the share drawn from the region, and tax revenue by jurisdiction. New York's Article VIII process requires a socioeconomic-effects exhibit, and Michigan's PA 233 siting process requires a showing of public benefits including local tax revenue, landowner payments, and local jobs. The exhibit is a filing requirement everywhere in the region and, increasingly, the document that gets quoted at every local hearing.
Every exhibit ships with an assumptions register that records each input, its source, and its date; a sensitivity table on the two or three assumptions that drive results — the resident labor share, the local materials share, and the fiscal rate; and a short review of the peer-reviewed evidence on property values and community effects, so the applicant is not caught flat when the question comes.
Modeling files are retained for reproducibility and for potential third-party review. The report follows the section order that Commission staff and intervenors have seen in prior dockets, so it reads as a familiar exhibit rather than a novel argument.
Sources: PSC of Wisconsin, Application Filing Requirements — Solar Generation (Sept. 2025), §§3.2, 6.1; Wind Generation (Aug. 2026); Ohio Adm. Code 4906-4-06(D); 16 NYCRR Part 1101; Michigan Public Act 233 of 2023.
Figure: Analysis-by-parts — how each line of a project budget becomes a regional impact, with imported equipment treated as leakage rather than local manufacturing.
Utility-scale energy projects are unlike generic construction: most of the capital is manufactured equipment made elsewhere, most of the construction crew travels, and operations are thin on staff but durable on income. A methodology that ignores those facts overstates local impacts and gets taken apart at the hearing. These principles follow IMPLAN's published guidance for solar construction and operations and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory parameter sets.
Wisconsin exempts utility-scale generation from local general property tax. Host counties and municipalities are compensated instead through statutory utility aid, calculated per megawatt of installed capacity. The schedule below is what a Wisconsin exhibit must reproduce, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and what every town board will ask about first.
| Component | Amount | Who receives it | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production-capacity payment (solar, wind) | $2,000 per MW per year | Two-thirds county, one-third town (reversed for a city or village host) | Wis. Stat. § 79.04 |
| Alternative-energy incentive payment | $1,500 per MW per year to each | County and host municipality separately | § 79.04, as increased by 2023 Wisconsin Act 19 |
| Combined annual aid (solar, wind) | $5,000 per MW per year | Roughly $2,833 county and $2,167 town per MW in a town-hosted project; per-capita caps apply to the non-incentive components | — |
| Battery energy storage aid | $1,000 per MW of storage capacity, beginning with 2027 payments | Same county-municipality split; utility-owned systems of 1 MW or more | 2025 Wisconsin Act 163 |
| Agricultural conversion charge (one-time) | Varies by county; 2025 statewide average about $283 per acre for conversions over 30 acres | Split evenly between county and municipality | Wis. Stat. § 74.485 |
| Negotiated commitments | Project-specific (joint development agreements, school payments, road agreements) | As agreed | Contract |
Illustration: a 150 MW solar project in a single town generates about $750,000 per year in utility aid — roughly $425,000 to the county and $325,000 to the town — or $22.5 million over a thirty-year life, before any one-time charges or negotiated payments. Rates verified with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue at drafting; figures above reflect statute as of September 2026.
Project size, host jurisdictions, filing date, and offtake confirmed on one call; a structured data request follows authorization.
County and state input-output models built with a project-specific bill of goods and documented regional purchase coefficients.
One-time construction impacts and annual operations impacts estimated separately, with resident-labor and local-content sensitivities.
Utility aid, PILOT, or production-tax payments computed per jurisdiction under the statute that applies, with one-time charges and negotiated commitments.
Report formatted to the application, executive summary for community audiences, assumptions register, and retained modeling files for the docket.
The economic and fiscal impact section of a CPCN, OPSB, Article VIII, or PA 233 application, formatted to the filing requirements and coordinated with counsel and the environmental consultant.
Per-community fiscal one-pagers and town-board presentation support that translate aggregate dollars into service and levy terms residents recognize.
Responses to Commission staff and intervenor data requests, supplemental town-level tables, rebuttal analysis, and expert testimony grounded in the retained record.
Valuation of proposed payments, school and road commitments, and local-hire pledges so both the developer and the host community negotiate from the same numbers.
For counties, towns, and intervenors: an independent reading of an applicant's exhibit against the same standards, so decision-makers know which numbers to rely on.
Repeatable exhibits across a developer's regional pipeline, and county-level screening of prospective sites on economic and fiscal criteria.
Most economic impact reports filed with siting applications run total project cost through a construction sector multiplier and present the result as local jobs. That is the approach intervenors have learned to challenge. This framework differs in four ways.
Each budget line carries a regional purchase share drawn from the EPC's sourcing plan or a stated benchmark, disclosed in the assumptions register. Reviewers can see exactly why imported modules do not create local manufacturing jobs.
Construction employment is reported in full-time-equivalent years with peak-month headcount, resident and non-resident crews are separated, and operations staffing reflects actual O&M plans — never a rolled-up "jobs created" total.
Utility aid by county and by town, the one-time conversion charge, school-levy interactions, and any negotiated commitments — expressed per household and relative to the local levy, which is how a town board thinks about it.
Property values, farmland loss, construction-period housing demand, and decommissioning are addressed directly with the peer-reviewed evidence, so the exhibit anticipates the hearing rather than reacting to it.
DMP Development Analytics offers a standardized economic impact exhibit with fixed scope, fixed turnaround, and a written quote within one business day of a scoping call. We also work with host communities and counties that need an independent reading of an applicant's numbers.