Minnesota’s state legislature has ramped up the clean energy targets for electric utilities with a bill that would ensure utility customers would receive 100% of their energy from only carbon-free resources 10 years sooner than many utilities had initially planned.

Minnesota

A 35-member group of Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party House members introduced House File (HF) 7 at the start of the year. 

HF7 sets a carbon-free standard under which all electric utilities, including electric cooperatives, must generate or procure their energy for retail distribution only from eligible technologies that include solar, wind, hydroelectric facilities already in operation, green hydrogen and renewable natural gas from certain sources. 

In April 2019, Gov. Tim Walz (DFL) initiated the...