Minnesota-based utility Xcel Energy supported terminating the program; in a March 26 hearing, a company representative criticized community solar as a costly way to deploy clean energy compared to utility-scale installations. Notably, companies other than utilities can develop community solar projects, and Xcel Energy doesn’t earn a profit on energy infrastructure it doesn’t own.
But the utility and other opponents aren’t accounting for community solar’s wide-ranging benefits, such as avoided transmission costs, the reduction in peak demand on the grid, and resilience, said Patty O’Keefe, Midwest regional director of national nonprofit Vote Solar.
In 2024, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, which oversees the state program, found that it’s expected to deliver $2.9 billion in net benefits over the next four decades. While the initiative is projected to increase bills by 2% to 3% for non-subscribers who aren’t considered low to moderate income, community solar is expected to lower energy bills for participating households by 3% to 8%.
Ultimately, lawmakers stripped the repeal language from the energy bill following pushback from community solar champions in the Legislature, including Democrats Rep. Patty Acomb, Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, and Rep. Melissa Hortman, O’Keefe said. (On June 14, Hortman and her husband were assassinated at their home in an act of politically motivated violence.)
Droves of supporters also helped save the state solar-garden program; they testified at hearings, marched, and protested, O’Keefe said. By her count, roughly 100 Minnesotans, including community solar subscribers, farmers, and clean energy advocates, called on legislators to reject the repeal.
But in Minnesota, at least, a major source of clean energy endures.
“This is a victory for the community solar movement,” O’Keefe said. “It just shows that even with a … forceful effort to try and repeal the entire program, we had enough power between the public and clean-energy champions to fight it back — and really send a message that Minnesota benefits from community solar.”
