Minnesota law (Minn. Stat. 325E.02 (b)) requires that, privately or publicly owned water, gas, telephone, cable television, electric light, heat, or power companies shall pay a specific interest rate on customer deposits.

By December 15 of each year, the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Commerce is required to announce the interest rate for the next year.

The rate for 2012 is 0.1%

View the language of the statute.

The rates are calculated using these steps:

The last full week in November 2011 was November 14-18.

The yields on one-year United States Treasury securities adjusted for constant maturity for this week are:

Monday, November 14
0.09%
 
Tuesday, November 15
0.11%
 
Wednesday, November 16
0.11%
 
Thursday, November 17
0.10%
 
Friday, November 18
0.12%

These yield rates come from the U.S Department of the Treasury's Interest Rate Statistics, specifically the one-year Daily Treasury Yield Curve Rates from Treasury's web site.

The average of these five yields is 0.11%. The required interest rate, rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent, is 0.1%

Rate History:
2011 = 0.3% 
2010 = 0.3%
2009 = 1.0%
2008 = 3.3%
2007 = 5.0%
2006 = 4.4%
2005 = 2.5%.