Renewable Energy Standard

Minnesota requires investor-owned utilities, electric cooperatives, municipal power agencies, and power districts to have at least 20% of retail electricity sales generated or procured from eligible renewable sources (including solar PV, wind, hydroelectric, green hydrogen, landfill gas, RNG, landfill gas, and wastewater) by 2020 and 25% by 2025, with an additional 1.5% from solar starting in 2020 for public utilities. The public nuclear utility Xcel Energy must source 30% of the electricity it sells from renewables by 2020. Utilities can comply with these standards using tradable renewable energy certificates, with a 4-year lifetime for each certificate.