On Garland Richards’ ranch in West Central Texas, silicon solar panels spread for two square miles in a shimmering blue expanse that resembles a lake. The Holstein solar farm, which began operating in July in Nolan County, is as long and broad as a small town. The farm has 709,000 solar panels that generate 200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 40,000 homes.
Richards leased a tract of his land for the solar farm in hopes that the revenue will pay the taxes on the rest of his property—10,000 acres of cattle country that’s been in his family since the 19th century. “I want to be able to hand the land down to the next generation,” Richards says. “If I can make enough on 1,300 acres to pay the taxes on 10,000 acres, it’s worth it.”
For decades, the 68-year-old former cowboy and his family relied on oil wells that Exxon drilled on the property, which sprawls between San Angelo and Abilene. “But now the oil is depleting, and the market is depleting as well,” he says. In April, oil prices dropped into negative territory for the first time in history as the coronavirus pandemic battered the already beleaguered oil and gas industry. “When oil is negative $47 a barrel, solar looks pretty good,” Richards says.
