The Clean Electricity Standard, which became state law in 2023, requires electric utilities to provide 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040.
Interim targets: Utilities are required to be 80% carbon-free by 2030, 90% carbon-free by 2035, and 100% carbon-free by 2040.
We are putting the Zero by 2040 law into action through multiple paths:
- Adding clean energy resources: Adding more clean energy sources reduces Minnesota’s reliance on fossil fuel and expands the state’s homegrown sources of energy, such as wind and solar. State law standards include:
- Renewable Electricity Standard: Requires 25% of retail electricity sold in the state from renewable resources by 2025; 55% by 2035.
- Solar Electricity Standard: Requires 1.5% of public utility retail electricity sales to be generated by solar energy by 2020, 10% by 2030.
- Preference for renewable energy in utility resource planning
- Renewable energy goal for total energy use: Requires 25% of total energy for heating, industrial, transportation and electricity from renewable resources.
- Advancing energy efficiency: Programs to reduce energy use include:
- The ECO Program at Commerce routinely saves over a million megawatts per year of electricity through energy efficiency and conservation.
- The Weatherization Assistance Program provides income-qualified homeowners with upgrades to their home to improve energy efficiency and safety.
- Energy benchmarking and efforts such as SB2030 to improve building efficiencies.
- Scaling energy storage: Minnesota is on track to add hundreds of megawatts of new storage projects. These projects will help balance the intermittent, low-cost electricity generated from wind and sun.
- Spurring adoption of grid enhancing technologies: Investments in smart grid technology are being deployed to enhance grid monitoring, control, and reliability, so more energy can be transported from where the energy is generated to where the energy is used. In addition to efforts to add new transmission lines, these types of projects can be implemented more quickly and at lower cost to ratepayers, adding value to the electric grid.