In May, when Great River Energy announced plans to close a North Dakota coal-burning plant that powers parts of Minnesota, it served as a reminder that the days of coal-powered energy will eventually end.
It’s hard to say when that last piece of coal will get burned in Minnesota, exactly, though the state’s largest utilities are planning to phase out most of their coal-fired plants by the end of the decade.
Xcel Energy has four coal-burning units that are still operating. Two units at its Sherco Power Plant near Becker are slated to close in 2023 and 2026 while the last one there could close in 2030, pending regulatory approval. The company is also proposing to close its coal-fired Oak Park Heights plant in 2028.
Meanwhile, Otter Tail Power plans to shutter its Fergus Falls plant in 2021 while Minnesota Power is preparing a proposal for state regulators that would close its two remaining units in Cohasset, on the Iron Range.
A half-dozen other operations also burn some coal, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, such as a steam plant in Duluth and utilities in a few rural cities. But the lion’s share of coal-produced power in Minnesota comes from the major utilities that are planning for a future without it.
Lost tax revenue
Audrey Partridge, the regulatory policy manager at the Center for Energy and Environment, a nonprofit organization that promotes green energy policies, has been studying the economic impact of coal-plant closures. One probable change: higher taxes in communities where coal-fired electricity plants have been producing significant revenue for cities and school districts.
“Many of these communities are probably not taxing their residents or businesses quite as high as other communities of their size, so they have some room to raise revenue,” she told MinnPost.
Indeed, in Cohasset, Minnesota Power’s Boswell Energy Center provides nearly 70 percent of the city’s tax revenue and about 20 percent of the school district’s take, according to the utility. Mayor Greg Hagy said that revenue stream was crucial in the recent construction of a senior center and in the renovation of a day care center.
Hagy is holding out faint hope that the coal units, which power this city of 2,800 people as well as the region’s mining and paper industries, might remain open indefinitely, arguing that they burn coal more efficiently than other plants. “You’re talking about a devastating economic hit, and that’s not even considering the spinoff jobs” that have been created, he said. “The bottom line: You’ll pay more for your power and your taxes will go up.”
Looking for alternatives
[image_credit]MinnPost file photo by Walker Orenstein[/image_credit][image_caption]Julie Pierce[/image_caption]
“This is the heart of our system,” she said, speaking of the Boswell operation. “It serves as the backbone to reliable energy in the region, so there are a lot of things we need to consider.”
Asked about the potential for rate hikes, she added: “We’re really digging into what the alternatives are to leverage that infrastructure while keeping the reliability and affordability of energy for our customers in the forefront.”
At the Sherco site in Becker, southeast of St. Cloud, fewer Xcel Energy employees will be needed to run the solar plant that will largely replace coal. City officials hope to create an industrial park there once the coal units shutter, with the idea that new businesses will help replace lost revenue. (Funding for that proposal is part of a statewide bonding bill that has stalled at the Legislature).
[image_credit]Xcel Energy[/image_credit][image_caption]Sherco 3 plant[/image_caption]
[image_caption]Greg Pruszinske[/image_caption]
“There will be an impact,” said Christopher Clark, Xcel’s president for Minnesota and the Dakotas. “For the most part, in communities where such a transition is happening, they can do things to replace part of (the lost revenue), but they can’t entirely replace that benefit.”
Meeting green goals
Three-fourths of the greenhouse gases emitted by electric companies in Minnesota come from Xcel Energy and Minnesota Power plants, according to MPCA statistics. The percentage is even higher for coal-produced emissions.
Last year, Gov. Tim Walz announced a strategy to wean Minnesota power companies off of coal and any other carbon-generating source by 2050. A related bill, known as Clean Energy First, would push electricity suppliers toward green energy by restricting the MPUC’s ability to approve new fossil-fuel power. (Neither bill has been signed into law).
[image_caption]Christopher Clark[/image_caption]
In 2005, for instance, 95 percent of the energy Minnesota Power produced was from coal; since then, the company has closed seven of its nine coal-fired units and will be producing 50 percent of its energy from renewable sources by the end of this year with the completion of a hydroelectric station, the company said.
Xcel Energy, meanwhile, hopes to generate 80 percent of its power from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, by 2030 and to generate all of its energy from renewable sources by mid-century. (It recently announced, as part of a plan to accelerate utility projects amid the COVID-19 pandemic, that it would add a major solar project at the Sherco site. For its part, Minnesota Power said it planned to add solar at plants in Hoyt Lakes and Brainerd).
Otter Tail Power, which provides electricity across western Minnesota, plans to replace its Hoot Lake Power Plant in Fergus Falls with energy from a wind farm under construction in North Dakota and a natural gas plant being built in South Dakota, a spokeswoman said. The coal plant was built in the 1950s.
This is a pretty inadequate article. To mention just a few points:
“Center for Energy and Environment” (CEE) has always been an Xcel Energy front. It should in no way be regarded as an independent voice.
It is very good to see coal generation declining, but the real driver for the utilities is the low price of natural gas, produced in abundance next door in North Dakota.
The three coal units in Becker are rated at 2238 mW. The 450 mW solar project Xcel is talking about near Becker would have 20 percent of that capacity, and a lower “capacity factor.” So it is not correct to say “the solar plant that will largely replace coal.” (But electricity is available in excess, so this is not a problem.)
Xcel is in no way planning to give up polluting, as indicated, for example, by the expanded garbage burning Xcel does in old, dirty, converted 1940s coal plants in Red Wing and Mankato.
Yes, the coal plant host communities will lose tax revenue, as will the nuke plant host communities (I live in one). On the other hand, the health of residents will benefit from reduced health-damaging air pollution.
“Chip away at their carbon footprint.”
Yes, and think what could have been accomplished if the MN legislature had actually enacted some green energy requirements in 1995, when it had already been demonstrated beyond argument by NASA scientists that the burning of ancient carbon-based fuels was causing a massive (man-made) increase in greenhouse gas emissions and causing everything frozen on earth to melt. As it is, as a result of the Do-Nothing/Know-Nothing “conservative” movement, the entire nation has had to rely on the ethical behavior of a few public utilities (mostly in Blue States) to get even the slightest positive movement toward a goal essential for the current make-up of life on earth.
As for small rural cities imagining that 75%[!] of your revenues can permanently come from a single business source, that’s simple municipal mismanagement, a clever shifting of your taxing obligation onto a private company to collect revenues for you. But a bailout will certainly be crafted, because WhoKnew (30 years after scientists became 100% certain what was the cause of global warming) that burning coal for electricity might not go on forever?
Been hearing the same thing for past 40 years. Coal fired plants will end when a cheaper form of energy is found.
Looks like the trend has actually been going on for about 15 years. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=43675
I’m curious as to why you’d dismiss this. Do you actually favor coal generation for some reason?
Because liberals hate it, would be my guess.
Erik, natural gas has replaced coal in the last 15 years. Solar and wind are still struggling to make a difference. With modern scrubbers coal is much cleaner today than ever, natural gas (with the help of modern scrubbers) is a bit cleaner than coal. Fracking has opened up the gas market and Lefties hate fracking.. Won’t be long before natural gas is in the crosshairs, just like coal was.
Hydraulic fracturing companies are having their own problems. The biggest one are filing for bankruptcy, following the modern pattern of first paying their executives healthy bonuses but leaving the public to endure or clean up the methane leaks from their wells.
Incidentally, “fracking” is regarded as pejorative by those in the industry, as they say the term was coined by opponents of the practice. They prefer the term “hydraulic fracturing.”
Apparently it’s been in one ear and out the other for 40 years as well….
It’s going to get dam cold in Northern Minnesota, when the grid goes black. Green energy is in no position to replace Clay Boswell. This is going to be a real shock to the budgets of many family’s who have become accustomed to cheap, clean, coal fired power. Once again leaders lying to the masses!
Cheap for who? Are factoring in the externalized costs?
The grid won’t go black, and coal isn’t cheap nor is it even remotely clean. None of what you say is true.
Advocates of green energy keep hyping the benefits of solar and wind without ever addressing the complete unreliability of either source. Utilities can say they are going to take their coal fired units offline, which perhaps is great for the carbon footprint. And, it will be good eventually to have more resources that don’t emit carbon. But the cold hard truth is that all the alternatives are unreliable. And as long as reliability is the main factor, then there will still have to be coal fired plants at least ready to fire up during times when the solar and wind power don’t generate enough power. And with the strong need for a large amount of reliable electricity for the Iron Range industries, there is likely no chance Boswell can be supplanted with very expensive and completely unreliable renewable energy.
For some reason people seem to think because the wind doesn’t blow all the time and the sun doesn’t shine all the time that these sources are unreliable. Its just complete ignorance of how it works. Everything you have said here is pure nonsense.
Those coal miners that are out of a job, should take Donny Trumps daughters advice….just go find something new! Oh wait. Donny promised them they`d all be back to work if he got elected. Sorry, I forgot.
If solar and wind are such a great deal for Minnesota why is minnesota’s electricity prices rising at twice the rate of the rest of the country?
Pat Terry please provide statistics and studies showing wind and solar can provide reliable electricity 24/7 from independent sources not affiliated or paid for by wind or solar industry.
Supporters of wind and solar never want talk about the fact that Mn electric rates are increasing at twice the national average. Mn went from having electricity rates cheaper than 80 % of states when it got 50% of its power from nuclear to having its rates higher than 60% of the states because of its switch to buying over priced wind and solar.
Wind and solar advocates never want to talk about how high mn electric rates are a burden for the elderly on fixed incomes or low income minorities. This is another example of white privilege.
Looking at the 2020 May year-to-date statistics from Electric Power Monthly from the Energy Information Administration, the amount of utility scale electricity generated by coal in Minnesota plummeted over 44% compared to the same period a year ago. The leading source of utility scale electricity in Minnesota over the first 5 months of 2020 was renewables (mostly wind, with a little solar and hydro), followed closely by nuclear, with coal and natural gas trailing.
Over that same time period, electricity from wind increased 8.4% and wind alone produced over 23% more electricity than coal in Minnesota. Electricity from nuclear increased 13.4% and electricity from gas increased 2.6%.
Also over that time period, the price of electricity dropped 0.8% in Minnesota a slightly faster decline than the drop of 0.2% nationwide.
Minnesota electricity isn’t as cheap as Iowa, but Iowa is a leader in wind power. In 2020 through May, Iowa generated 48% more utility scale electricity from wind than from coal, natural gas and nuclear power combined. Iowa’s coal use dropped more than 53% year over year. Iowa’s price for electricity was among the lowest in the country.
In the entire lower 48 states, for the first half of 2020, more electricity was produced from renewables than from coal and renewables’ share is increasing while that of coal is decreasing.