Thanks for the info. Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by the phrase 'utility-scale solar', but my understanding of the intent of that bill was to encourage dispersed solar. I believe it reauthorized the state installation subsidy, as well as the rate that utilities are required to buy the surplus at. Obviously solar is never going to be the largest source of energy for Minnesota, but neither did this bill require that. A 1.5% requirement would seem to be enough to allow it to be an option for individuals where it makes sense, but I doubt it will ever require a utility to develop any solar generation facilities.Of course they lobbied against the solar requirement. Utility-scale solar isn't ready for this climate. It's only happening in Germany because of massive, unsustainable subsidies.
And if you check the 2nd link I provided, you'll note that Xcel spent far more on lobbying against Colorado's renewable portfolio mandate than they have on any other single issue. Colorado had a relatively large solar component, but then they have some areas that are well-suited for large scale solar.
This is a petty argument, but Xcel covers a good half of the great plains. Probably Texas has more population than the rest of the great plains states put together. But anyway, I don't know how much credit you can give them for building those hundreds of million-dollar wind turbines when they were forced to do so by legislation that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying against.Xcel hardly covers 'most of the great plains. Even if they did, though, they'd still have to invest in hundreds of million-dollar wind turbines.
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As I wrote when we were discussing this a couple months ago, I'm leaning against municipalization here because of the timing, and the info Silophant provided about the location of the infrastructure is an additional strike against it. But it's always a good idea to explore public operation of natural monopolies so that the benefits can be used for a public purpose.