Dive Brief:
- Midwest states are making major gains on renewable and low-carbon energy deployment, but local opposition to utility-scale projects is a growing challenge, according to panelists at a Tuesday session of the American Clean Power Association’s Cleanpower conference in Minneapolis.
- Panelist Chris Kunkle, senior director of government affairs for Apex Clean Energy, cited abundant renewable resources, robust demand from corporate power purchasers, ambitious state clean energy goals and a “relatively functioning interconnection queue” as tailwinds for renewable energy developers in the Midwest.
- But Midwestern policymakers can do more to ensure their states remain models for the rest of the country, especially around transmission bottlenecks and local permitting challenges, said Beth Soholt, executive director of the Clean Grid Alliance. “We have a lot to work on,” she said. “Time is not on our side, so we have to move.”
Dive Insight:
Several Midwestern states already generate a majority of their electricity from renewable and zero-emissions sources, but local opposition is a significant obstacle to further progress that developers need to work with communities and state policymakers to overcome, panelists said.
Renewables accounted for 84% of the generation mix in South Dakota and wind alone accounted for 62% of Iowa generation in 2022, while Illinois provided 13% of the United States’ total nuclear output, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Zero-carbon sources comprised 54% of Minnesota’s generation mix in 2024, according to Clean Energy Economy Minnesota.
Illinois (2050), Minnesota (2040) and Michigan (2040) also have legislative mandates for carbon-free electricity production. Illinois passed its zero-emissions law in 2021. Minnesota and Michigan followed in 2023.
These commitments are the latest milestones in a transition that began decades ago, Soholt said. In Minnesota, Xcel Energy’s predecessor first agreed to generate some power from wind and biomass in 1994, followed by a 2007 legislative mandate for 25% renewable electricity by 2025, she noted. But despite clear progress, Soholt characterized the state’s efforts to date as “groundwork.”
“Targets are great, but how do you get steel in the ground,” said Will Eberle, vice president for government relations and regulatory affairs at RWE Clean Energy.
Midwestern policymakers and regulators are generally good about “finding the problem and getting the job done” when it comes to renewables development, but local opposition to utility-scale renewables is a growing challenge across the region and beyond, Eberle said. As the “deep but narrow” local impacts of large-scale fossil generation give way to broader, shallower impacts from renewables in rural areas, “we need to be honest and take [communities’] concerns seriously,” he said.
“Well-meaning” state policies can exacerbate those concerns, Kunkle said, pointing to a Michigan policy requiring pollinator-friendly plantings around certain solar projects on agricultural land. That requirement becomes more costly and complex as projects scale, he added.
“There’s a big difference between a 1-MW project and a 200-MW project,” he said.
States’ efforts to promote agrivoltaics, or colocating solar arrays with agricultural uses like sheep grazing, likewise need to balance conservation with the needs of potentially skeptical local farmers, Eberle said.
Beyond agrivoltaics, developers should also recognize that land lease agreements are voluntary and land set aside for renewables may one day be used for agriculture again, Soholt said. Citing farmers’ frequent complaints about damage to subsurface drain tile, she said developers “need to make sure that the land will be in the same or better condition after construction” to avoid “a black eye out of the gate.”
Honest, transparent negotiations often allay these concerns, said State Sen. Waylon Brown, R-Iowa, who owns farmland and a construction company in northern Iowa. Those negotiations may hinge on seemingly trivial items, like developers’ willingness to remove loose rocks from disturbed earth, but they’re key to building trust and helping projects advance.
“When [farmers] are able to sit down with developers…that’s when you get good results,” he said.
Agriculture is a uniting force in a politically heterogeneous region, as are other shared economic interests, Minnesota Commerce Department Commissioner Grace Arnold said. Democratic-controlled Minnesota and Republican-controlled North Dakota collaborate on cross-border economic development initiatives despite coal-rich North Dakota’s threat to sue over Minnesota’s 100% clean energy standard, she noted.
“We as a collective here in the Midwest have a lot of power” to shape renewable energy deployment “because we can talk about how it impacts agriculture and Fortune 500 companies, which we have a lot of,” Arnold said
