DULUTH — Tasked with reevaluating its plan to add natural gas power plants in its 15-year energy plan, Minnesota Power maintained in a recent regulatory filing that additional gas plants provide the most reliable and least-expensive future.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission required the Duluth-based utility to consider alternatives to its March 2025 plan
the sale of Allete to Canada Pension Plan Investment board and BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners in October.
That plan, filed nearly a year ago, outlined how the company planned to reach the state’s 100% carbon-free electricity mandate by 2040 and replace the power generation lost when it retires its two remaining coal-fired plants at Cohesset’s Boswell Energy Center in 2030 and 2035.
It called for refueling Unit 3 with natural gas by 2030 and bringing 750 megawatts of new natural gas energy capacity online by Unit 4’s 2035 retirement while also adding 400 megawatts of wind energy and 100 megawatts of energy storage on top of its existing and ongoing renewable projects.
But environmental groups have urged the Duluth-based utility not to replace one fossil fuel with another amid human-caused climate change. While natural gas releases fewer carbon dioxide emissions than coal, it does release methane, a more potent greenhouse gas.
The PUC, as a condition of the utility’s purchase by private investment firms, instructed the company to consider four scenarios aimed at reducing its future natural gas reliance.
Of the four scenarios studied by the company, the one it considers its most reliable and affordable largely mirrors the company’s March 2025 plan, which the company refers to as “Pathway 4.”
The key difference is that 750 megawatts of new natural gas is trimmed to 650 megawatts, offset by the inclusion of 100 megawatts of customer programs, which could include more demand response, which reduces energy consumption during peak demand, and more distributed energy, like more residential solar energy tied into the grid.
“Our analysis will show that Pathway 4 is the least expensive of the options and ensures reliability,” said Jen Cady, Allete’s vice president of public policy and external affairs.
Meanwhile, the scenario that would add no natural gas resources and only additional renewable sources was considered the most expensive and least reliable by the company.
Hudson Kingston, a legal director for the environmental group Cure, said the company’s filing was “disappointing.”
“The whole acquisition was supposed to fund some big, new, ambitious vision that apparently is the same vision as they had without the new owners,” Kingston said. The renewable-only scenario called for 2,700 megawatts of new resources, made up of 800 megawatts of wind, 500 megawatts of solar, 100 megawatts of demand response, 500 megawatts of 8-hour lithium-ion battery storage and 600 megawatts of 100-hour-long duration energy storage.
“Relying heavily on batteries introduces higher blackout risk, especially if battery state of charge or event duration limits their effectiveness,” the company wrote in the filing.
It added that it would need 650 megawatts of energy production that it could quickly bring online, and in the absence of new gas plants, the “next most viable option” was nuclear power.
However, new nuclear plants are banned in Minnesota. And even if nuclear power were allowed, it would likely not be able to permit and complete the facility by 2040, which would force it to delay the 2035 retirement date of its last coal, the company said.
Still, Kingston said he would like to dig into the company’s modeling used for the renewable-only scenario.
“They’re arriving at the same scenario that they start with, because they are just sort of assuming that renewables don’t work as well as we know they do,” Kingston said. “So that’s unfortunate.”
In the filing, Minnesota Power said “the immediate need for dispatchable capacity” is more important than ever, after it
that it would not be purchasing energy from the Nemadi Trail Energy Center natural gas plant proposed for Superior.
Cady said Minnesota Power’s energy demand is unique, as it has peaks in winter and has heavy year-round demand from industrial customers, like taconite plants.
“The analysis that we’ve done is really based around these coldest days, because that’s the core of our obligation: to keep the lights on and keep the heat running during the most extreme weather events,” Cady said. “And that’s what we have to plan for.”
Going forward, clean energy groups, industrial customers and state agencies are expected to comment on the new filing, and the PUC will ultimately shape and approve a 15-year plan for the company.
Jimmy Lovrien covers environment-related issues, including mining, energy and climate, for the Duluth News Tribune. He can be reached at jlovrien@duluthnews.com or 218-461-9718.
