Minnesota passes energy conservation legislation

Last year, the Minnesota Legislature passed the state's first comprehensive energy initiative in two decades. As a result of the Energy Security and Reliability Act, Minnesota electric cooperatives and municipals shifted a portion of their emphasis from load management to investing more in energy conservation.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce sets the rules for conservation programs and initiated the enhanced program because of a projected energy shortfall and the need to build more baseload powerplants. The state Commerce Department encourages electric utilities across the state to offer customers programs emphasizing improved lighting efficiency and energy savings for renters and low-income families.

Commerce Conservation Improvement and Special Projects Manager Lois Mack said, "This is not a new requirement for the utilities, but rather an increased accountability and focus on conservation."

Requirement changes

Minnkota Power Cooperative's Vice President of Legal and Governmental Affairs David Sogard said, "This year marks the first for the new reporting requirements. Prior to 2002, expenditures for electric load management qualified as energy conservation measures. Now load management can count for only a portion of the required spending, and this will be declining over the next four years."

Starting in June, Minnkota and the eight member-owned distribution cooperatives in Minnesota submitted a consolidated conservation improvement report to the Commerce Department, detailing conservation, renewables, and load management efforts. The department requires a similar report every two years.

The reporting requirement is part of Minnesota's new energy policy law requiring electric cooperatives to increase their load management and conservation spending from 1.5 percent of the generation and transmission cooperative's revenue to 1.5 percent of the member cooperatives' retail service revenues.

Minnkota Marketing Manager Scott Scheving said, "Historically, Minnkota and the associated systems have been leaders in practicing effective load management. However, we may need to make additional expenditures in other programs to meet the conservation spending requirement of the law."

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