North Dakota pays for Minnesota’s coal plant closures

[Smokin Joe]

https://americanexperimentnd.org/north-dakota-pays-for-minnesotas-coal-plant-closures/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=North%20Dakota%20Pays%20for%20Minnesota%20s%20Coal%20Plant%20Closures%3F&utm_campaign=ND%20Newsletter%2010%2F10%2F25%20%28Copy%29

Northern States Power Co., part of Minnesota’s Xcel Energy, has asked the North Dakota Public Service Commission for an unusually large rate increase, of 19.34 percent. If the rate increase were to be approved in full, the average Northern States Power residential customer would pay an extra $22.34 per month over last year.


A key issue in the rate case is Xcel’s premature closure of coal-fired generation in Minnesota, which has been done to comply with the state’s mandate for 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2040. One of three coal units at Sherco near Monticello, Minnesota was retired on New Year’s Eve, 2023, and Xcel Energy plans to close the other two units in 2026 and 2030.
<snip>
Xcel’s closure of coal-fired power plants will mean higher electricity prices because new wind and new solar construction cost twice and three times the cost of continuing to operate Sherco. To maintain reliability, Xcel will need to build a lot of wind and solar to compensate. These costs will almost certainly spill over into North Dakota because the company operates in multiple states and is within the same regional transmission organization, MISO.

[Smokin Joe]

I will send comment to the ND PSC which has to approve the rate increase in ND for it to take effect here. Estimates are that NDSU will end up paying a million dollars more for electricity under the rate hike. That comes from the taxpayers in North Dakota, including the oil extraction tax, which indirectly would be forcing one industry to subsidize another, competing form. Same for our coal industry.

The 'need' for the rate increase is a direct result of Minnesotas Net Zero policies which ND does not share, and which ND Citizens cannot vote to change. It is an imposition of the results of bad policy that leaves North Dakotans no electoral recourse to change, because North Dakotans have no say in Minnesota governance.