Representing the pro-solar energy coalition at the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission hearing earlier this month, left to right, Erin Pratt (Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light), Bret Pence (Arrowhead Interfaith Power and Light), Jessica Tritsch (Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign organizer), and DyAnn Andybur (volunteer activist with the Minnesota Sierra Club, Izaak Walton League & Interfaith Power and Light).
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With the United States and the rest of the world rapidly making the transition to a solar energy economy, Minnesota is no exception. The city of Duluth is currently making rapid strides to update its energy economy, with Minnesota Power making some progressive changes to its original “community solar gardens” proposal. This proposal continues to reside outside the original goals of the community solar law (as defined by the 2013 statute). The utility has elected to offer a version of community solar, yet it is keeping the decision making ability and benefits of a "community" solar array, rather than allowing these benefits to flow to the communities these arrays are supposed to serve.
To have a fair and just community solar program that truly benefits our communities, the Sierra Club and a number of other grassroots environmental and social justice organizations collaborated to ask the PUC to require Minnesota Power to address the following issues to make its program consistent with state law and a fair deal for the communities, businesses and citizens it serves:
● Fair playing field for all community solar gardens, including non-utility proposals. Ensure a transparent, clear and consistent pathway to solar garden participation. The current proposal, limited in design and solely controlled by the utility, limits the amount of solar that will be put on the ground, constrains consumer choice, and restricts market innovation from addressing issues such as energy poverty among low-income populations. Solar garden participation should be equally affordable to all residential customers, regardless of income , and solar gardens should bring energy jobs and dollars directly into our communities.
● Fair pricing and compensation policy for renewable energy production. Community solar gardens should be compensated under the same rules, whether they are utility or non-utility projects. This compensation should be consistent with the retail rate of electricity or undergo a value of solar process as previously determined by the PUC. Finally, Minnesota Power should offer the choice for subscribers to either keep their Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) or offer fair compensation. The current proposed value for these credits is 10 times less than in Xcel Energy’s service territory, does not reflect their compliance value to Minnesota Power for meeting state requirements, and does not provide a fair price for subscribers.
● Fair accounting for small-scale solar. Community solar gardens should not be counted toward meeting the state’s small solar requirement (20kW or less), as Minnesota Power proposes. The small- scale requirement was designed to allow communities to benefit from the increased jobs, positive economic impact, and increase in property values that small solar projects generate. These requirements were inserted to prevent a utility from monopolizing the benefits of solar development for itself.
Customers can choose to subscribe to buy solar electricity, now at a higher cost, instead of electricity from the utility's combined grid of wind, coal, and natural gas.
Despite these proposals, critics say Minnesota Power is bending state guidelines for community solar gardens to benefit the utility's bottom line and not necessarily to benefit community groups as lawmakers intended when the Minnesota legislature pushed community solar in a 2013 law.
"We love the fact there is going to be more solar, and that more people can participate in more solar,'' said James Hietala, a Duluth Sierra Club member.” But there are parts of this that really go against the intent of solar gardens; that take away from the community benefits you could get if Minnesota Power was proposing a more open, inclusive process."
Another concerned Minnesotan, Bill Mittlefehldt, has been concerned about climate change for over twenty years. An active member of Duluth’s Peace United Church of Christ, Mittlefehldt helped organize a local chapter of Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, a multi-denominational group that raises awareness and action of climate change. Several area churches conducted energy audits on their buildings, and then got interested in whether solar panels could work for them.
Following site evaluations, the group sent a letter to Minnesota Power, one of five investor-owned utilities in the state, serving 144,000 customers in northeastern Minnesota. The letter offered to lease land or roof space to ten churches, all of whom wanted to create community solar gardens.
Many families and businesses can’t build solar collectors on their own buildings because they are renting their homes, or the building is too shaded or faces the wrong direction.
The Minnesota Department of Commerce says the state has solar potential similar to Florida and Texas.
In the fall of 2015 Minnesota Power announced it would build two pilot community solar gardens – a 1-megawatt array (capable of serving about 150 homes) somewhere in St. Louis County, and a 40-kilowatt array (capable of serving about 5 homes) on Minnesota Power property in Duluth. Mittlefehldt says his group is “delighted that Minnesota Power is planning to invest in solar,” but they are disappointed that the program doesn’t permit churches and other independent groups to build solar installations, and they are pressing the utility to adopt their broader vision.
“The more we reviewed the details of their proposal, we were frankly let down that they seemed to be more interested in capping the interest rather than expanding and capitalizing on that interest,” Mittlefehldt said.
Other groups and agencies, including Fresh Energy , the Sierra Club, and the Minnesota Department of Commerce,have contributed comments to the plan. They argue the document should read more like what Xcel Energy is required to do under legislation passed in 2013. The legislature directed the state’s largest utility to purchase solar electricity from independent developers who will build solar gardens and sell shares to individuals and businesses. While most solar companies promise to save money for participants, Xcel is not allowed to limit the number of projects.
Minnesota is a national leader in community solar, due in large part to the state’s 2013 law requiring Xcel Energy to offer solar rebate programs. In neighboring Michigan, by contrast, state laws do not promote community solar, but several utilities are starting projects to meet s growing customer demand. Each must design its own price structure, producing questions such as those being asked in Minnesota.
In Wisconsin, meanwhile, regulators have been awarding utilities higher fixed monthly charges on electric bills. Power companies say the charges can help them recoup grid costs from customers who produce their own electricity, but solar advocates say they are designed to kill small-scale solar energy production. Wisconsin’s electric coops have pioneered community solar projects, and a few investor-owned utilities are beginning to make small offerings to their customers. In Canada, Ontario was an early adopter of a feed-in tariff, setting a guaranteed rate higher than the retail rate for renewable energy producers. One program is for individual homes or businesses; another encourages community groups to build solar arrays.
It remains clear that the US and Canada are working to deflect the siren call of the fossil fuel industry and break free from its bonds to create a more sustainable energy economy. While there is still conflicts over the implementation of a true community solar garden, both in Minnesota and elsewhere, the creation of any solar array on homes is a major step forward to a cleaner and healthier energy future.