How Trump energy policy complicates a Minnesota utility’s path to clean power

The Trump administration s targeting of clean force is complicating the path to clean electricity in northern Minnesota As of now Minnesota electric utilities are on track to comply with a state law requiring them to sell only carbon-free power to customers by But the road ahead looks more challenging and more expensive thanks to Republicans rollback of several Biden-era efforts to accelerate the transition from polluting power plants The One Big Beautiful Bill signed by President Donald Trump in July eliminated or severely restricted hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants loans and tax credits for renewable ability and other low- or zero-emission technologies The administration has also effectively halted once-routine federal permitting for large-scale wind and solar projects and rescinded permits for a few previously approved projects The federal turmoil comes at a particularly sensitive time for Minnesota Power the investor-owned utility serving customers across northern Minnesota Related Tribal nations scramble to save clean vitality projects as federal encouragement vanishes The Minnesota Population Utilities Commission could vote as soon as next month on a proposed merger between Allete the utility s parent company and an financing group led by a subsidiary of BlackRock the private equity giant Earlier this year BlackRock lost a billion book of business with a Dutch pension fund that was concerned it wasn t doing enough to address context jeopardy At a news conference last week outside Allete s downtown Duluth headquarters DFL State Sen Jen McEwen and environmental advocates questioned BlackRock s sustainable bona fides citing its extensive investments in heavy industry and fossil fuels Minnesota Power and its prospective buyers beg to differ BlackRock and CPP Investments say they have committed nearly billion toward Minnesota Power s infrastructure plans promotion the utility says it necessities to meet the state s carbon-free electricity mandate Advancing the clean-energy future requires considerable outlay and the long-term experienced investors we have chosen as partners will give us the access to capital needed for this potential transition Minnesota Power spokesperson Amy Rutledge communicated the Minnesota Reformer last month Skeptics say it s far from certain that the buyers will make good on that promise A judge warned in July that the new owners could pursue financial engineering that weakens the utility s financial position and its transition plan And Minnesota Power s long-range strategy relies heavily on new wind power the innovation hurt most of by contemporary federal program changes Meanwhile the utility proposes adding enough new gas-fired generation to power several hundred thousand homes a deficit it would need to make up through renewable strength purchases from outside its system potentially at important cost to ratepayers We still think for better or worse that wind and solar will be the cheapest way to build new power generation but the cheapest way to build new power generation will become more expensive and that is highly inflationary Pete Wyckoff Minnesota Department of Commerce deputy commissioner of potential guidance revealed in an interview Industrial improvement could move the clean electricity goalposts Minnesota Power already generates to of its power from wind solar and hydroelectric facilities up from just in It aims to meet a state mandate for clean power by and hit renewables while phasing out coal by In a -year deposit plan filed with the Community Utilities Commission this year Minnesota Power proposed adding at least megawatts of wind power and megawatts of resource storage limit to megawatts of renewable information already under growth The plan would also add about megawatts of gas-fired maximum by and at least megawatts of industrial demand response paying energy-intensive customers to ramp down their loads when the grid is stressed If industrial customers like taconite mills lumber processors or a attainable information center in Hermantown push power demand higher than expected Minnesota Power could add up to megawatts of additional wind megawatts of additional vigor storage and megawatts of solar That Advance Plan could serve up to megawatts of new load over the next decade-plus the utility says Minnesota Power hasn t commented how much of that load could come from large-scale content centers but Xcel Potential and the state s largest wholesale electric cooperative say they expect up to megawatts of new information center demand by the early s Statistics centers could consume as much of U S electricity output in the U S Department of Vigor disclosed in December We work closely with all our existing and new customer requests on their upcoming power requirements Julie Pierce Minnesota Power vice president of strategy and planning noted in an email We have a long history of serving specific of the largest industrial customers in the country and Northeast Minnesota would welcome additional industry to locate in this part of the state Even if new industrial demand fails to materialize Minnesota Power s heavy reliance on wind power and to a lesser extent solar looks like a vulnerability these days President Trump routinely rails against windmills which he blames for spoiling the view from a golf resort he owns in Scotland Though he supports carbon-free support like nuclear and geothermal power Capacity Secretary and former fracking executive Chris Wright is a hardened renewables skeptic who spouts blatant misinformation about solar power and has characterized wind power as a innovation in decline despite double-digit global development Minnesota Power is confident it can continue clean vitality progress If Pierce and her band worry that a hostile federal leadership could derail Minnesota Power s force transition plans they re not showing it Implementation of new strength projects is a long journey and we have a history of navigating permitting and strategy changes Pierce stated Minnesota Power has enough quota to serve customers in the near term and is committed to meeting the requirements of the Minnesota law she added One question the utility will need to answer definitively in the coming years is what to do with the coal-fired Boswell Ability Center its nearly -megawatt Iron Range workhorse Its latest pool plan calls for adding an -megawatt solar array in the next insufficient years converting the smaller of its two operating units from coal to gas by and growing non-coal options for the larger unit by That could mean a range of firm carbon-free power sources such as enhanced geothermal gas with carbon capture apparatus long-duration ability storage and advanced nuclear Minnesota Power says Utilities elsewhere are bullish on small modular reactors which proponents say are safer and cheaper to deploy than conventional large reactors like those at Xcel s Prairie Island and Monticello power plants Boswell is one of hundreds of aging coal power plants in the United States bulk of which the U S Department of Ability says could feasibly host small nuclear reactors Related BlackRock s bid for Minnesota Power worries consumer advocates Minnesota Power supports an all-of-the-above ability strategy and is pleased to see the progress being made on small reactors we look forward to learning more as the critical first implementations of this mechanism are completed Pierce disclosed Efforts to lift Minnesota s moratorium on nuclear power progress face an uphill climb in the state legislature The biggest hang-up is the complicated legacy of the temporary nuclear waste storage facility on the Prairie Island Indian Public s doorstep that has effectively become permanent State leaders who otherwise backing clean resource are skeptical that advanced nuclear will help Minnesota utilities decarbonize by The largest part newest U S commercial nuclear project took more than a decade to build and ended up billions of dollars over budget DFL Rep Larry Kraft noted in an interview Even if things go well it s not going to help us for years and we need to largely decarbonize by then Kraft explained People place too much emphasis on that discussion All roads run through North Dakota Among the dozens of Trump administration executive actions that could complicate Minnesota Power s path is a sweeping July order that requires Interior Secretary and former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum to personally approve permit applications on federal lands Experts say the order is broad enough to hinder countless projects on private lands Bergum s home state got of its electricity from wind in It s home to much of Minnesota Power s existing renewables which power Minnesota via a -mile transmission line North Dakota is also where the utility hopes to energize a new -megawatt wind farm in about two years That project called Longspur Wind is midway through its permitting process with state and local agencies and positioned to meet the deadline to qualify for federal clean resource tax incentives Pierce explained Those incentives could reduce the net cost of its power by cents per kilowatt-hour or about of the average retail power price paid by Minnesota customers Minnesota Power s close working relationship with state and local bureaucrats in North Dakota should work to its benefit as it seeks approval for Longspur Kevin Pranis marketing manager for the Minnesota and North Dakota chapter of the Laborers International Union of North America commented in an interview LIUNA members build and operate power plants for utilities across the Upper Midwest including Minnesota Power Allete has been doing business in North Dakota for years so it helps to be a known quantity he reported In an ironic twist Pranis announced that good will stems in part from Allete s ownership of BNI Power a North Dakota-based coal miner But Longspur could be a rare bright spot in a more challenging atmosphere for renewable resource progress toward the end of the decade We think we have a busy two years of projects but after that it s less clear Pranis mentioned citing the loss of federal tax incentives and the weaponization of the permitting process If your construction start is more than three years out you re working through particular big questions he revealed Still with our environment goals in Minnesota we re just going to keep rolling ahead The post How Trump strength guidelines complicates a Minnesota utility s path to clean power appeared first on MinnPost