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Land was once set aside as Native American reservations because it was undesirable and low in resources, but now interested Native Americans may have economic leverage in the growing industry of clean energy. A team of researchers led by UW–Madison professors Dominic Parker and Sarah Johnston quantified the economic potential of wind and solar energy projects on these lands and discussed the regulatory barriers for tribes wishing to tap into it.

"This is the first comprehensive analysis of the potential income that renewable energy projects could provide and an outline of the regulatory barriers facing tribes wanting to pursue them," says Parker, a professor of agricultural and applied economics. "However, we emphasize that this is not a call to impose federal energy priorities on unwilling tribes."

The study, recently published in Nature Energy, found that reservation lands are 46% less likely to host wind farms and 110% less likely to host solar farms than otherwise similar adjacent lands. Adding to this striking overall disparity, wind and solar resources are especially abundant in the poorest 25% of reservations. Most of these are located in remote areas where income opportunities from casinos and nearby urban labor markets are lacking.

The researchers used a statistical model to quantify the disparity between on- vs. off-reservation land for wind and solar farms installed by 2022. The team combined those results with energy demand forecasts through 2050 to predict the income that tribes would leave on the table if the current disparity persists until then.

In a scenario of high electrification and future reliance on renewables to meet energy demand, tribes would forego over $19 billion in lease and tax earnings by 2050, or $11.6 billion for a low-electrification scenario. The equivalent estimate for casino earnings through 2050 is $67 billion.

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