Jul. 25—ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission unanimously agreed Thursday to investigate a complaint by the
against its electrical provider,
over its threat to disconnect service to the Prairie’s Edge Casino Resort if the community activates a 2.5-megawatt, behind-the-meter solar array.
The vote by four commission members during the July 24 meeting came after they voiced a willingness to take away Minnesota Valley’s exclusive right to provide electrical service to the tribal community, and transfer it to Xcel or another entity. A fifth member of the commission was absent on Thursday.
Commission member John Sullivan called it “outrageous” that the Montevideo-based power cooperative was threatening to disconnect electrical service over the community’s plans for a behind-the-meter solar array — on the customer’s side of the meter.
Commissioner Audrey Partridge was among the four commissioners voicing their concerns about how the cooperative is treating one of its own member customers.
“I’m not sure if you are being discriminatory, but you are sure being unreasonable,” she told attorney Matthew Haugen of Montevideo, who represented the cooperative at the Public Utilities Commission meeting.
“You’ve lost your tether to the purpose of an electric utility,” she said, citing the potential physical and financial harm the disconnection could cause.
The commission members asked the Attorney General’s Office to investigate and possibly take action to prevent a disconnection. Haugen said the disconnection would apply only to the facilities connected to the solar array, and not homes in the tribal community.
Minnesota Valley contends that the commission has no authority to investigate cooperatives under state law. Cooperatives are not under the same legal obligations as are regulated public utilities.
Haugen argued that the Upper Sioux Community is obligated to abide by its contract with Minnesota Valley. It requires the community to abide by the cooperative’s bylaws and policies as set by the board of directors, he told the commission members.
The policy of the cooperative’s board of directors prevents any member from producing more than 40 kilowatts of power for its distribution system. Any amount generated over that level must be sold to a third party.
If the Upper Sioux Community generates 2.5 megawatts, or 2,500 kilowatts of electricity, the lost revenue is borne by the other cooperative members, according to Haugen.
If the cooperative does not protect its stream of revenue, it increases the costs for everybody else, the attorney said. The cooperative serves a “very rural” area in eight counties. It maintains 3,700 miles of electrical line to serve its roughly 5,200 customers, according to Haugen.
“You are violating your obligation to interconnect behind-the-meter generation because of your financial interest,” Commissioner Hwikwon Ham stated during discussions.
The Upper Sioux Community intends to use the solar power entirely behind the meter. The electricity will not enter the
system. It would provide about 30% of the casino’s power, according to attorney Leif Rasmussen, who represents the community.
The Upper Sioux Community is a sovereign nation and has the right to produce its own power for its own use. It is also not under the requirements of civil regulatory law in Minnesota, Rasmussen told the commission.
The attorney stated that the Upper Sioux Community brought the complaint to the PUC as a courtesy, believing that state law prevents the cooperative from following through on its threat to disconnect the community.
Nicholas Kasprowicz, an attorney representing Wolf River Electric, which is building the solar array, called the cooperative’s actions “retaliatory and blatantly discriminatory.”
He said Wolf River wanted to have a zero export study completed for the solar array and battery project, since the power will be used entirely behind the meter and electricity will not be exported to the Minnesota Valley system. The cooperative requested that the company instead pay for a study of net metering — the term for the sale of excess energy back to the grid — even though that is not how the system is intended to work, Kasprowicz told the commission.
Commission members stated that they have the right and duty to investigate the complaint, as upheld by state law in a 1980s case.
While the PUC cannot regulate cooperatives, the law allows the commission to investigate the “standards and practices” of power suppliers, and “whether they are reasonable, insufficient or unjustly discriminatory and if any service is inadequate or cannot be obtained,” said commission member John Tuma, who chaired the meeting. “Sounds like a shutoff might be one of them,” he said.
Tuma compared the Upper Sioux Community’s intent to produce its own power as being no different than the cogeneration system at the Pine Bend Refinery, where Flint Hill Resources uses excess heat energy to produce electricity for its operations.