In December 2017, fifty Stevens County community members came together to start brainstorming about the future of their energy system. After listening to three introductory presentations, participants considered these three questions in small groups:
- What interests or excites you most about the future of our energy system?
- What concerns do you have about the way our energy system might change?
- What do you think Stevens County’s energy system should look like in 10 years?
Participants prioritized reliability and reducing climate change and pollution as key criteria for evaluating the future energy system. In the conversation, five focus areas stood out:
- Renewable energy
- Energy efficiency and behavior change
- Batteries and energy storage technology
- District heating
- Local energy ownership & microgrids
For our second event in February, we dove deeper into these 5 focus issues, with experts highlighting key features of each. You can watch the presentations on each topic here. Following the presentations, participants considered what it might take to pursue or implement that action in Stevens County, and outlined the benefits, challenges to be overcome, and action steps. Finally, participants voted on the areas they’d like the community to address first.
Below you’ll find the results of the discussion, in order of priority. As the community moves forward and makes changes to the local energy system, this input from residents will act as a guide.
Community Priorities
Energy Efficiency & Behavior Change (21 votes)
Benefits
- Economic
- Keeping money local
- Defer capital investments
- Reduce cost to consumer
- Environmental
- Reducing energy use reduces fossil fuel use and greenhouse gases
- Being good stewards of our environment
- Sustainability
- Would make room for electrifying more loads to reduce carbon emissions overall
- Energy System
- Will be great for shaving peak demand (3-8pm)
- Help to not tax grid during outages
- EV batteries could serve as small-scale storage
Challenges
- Education
- We need to educate, convince, and get buy-in possibly through incentives.
- Every individual, as well as large business, needs to make a change in attitude and action.
- Need to make efficiency “cool”
- Economic
- Assisting/reaching low-income households for replacing expensive equipment/appliances
- Incentivizing landlords to save energy or change how leases are written so that landlord feels some of the energy burden
Action Steps
- Stakeholders to involve: government officials, civic groups, school groups, everyone.
- Education
- Outreach to homeowners offering energy audits
- Encourage farmers to use good energy practices
- Encourage businesses to only light their facilities when in use.
- Include good energy behavior in the school curriculum at all levels.
- Invoke energy efficiency issues in political campaigns and discussion to protect programs from cuts.
- House parties on energy efficiency actions you’ve taken in your own home and encourage people to take them, too.
- Programs
- Subsidized energy efficient practices as part of a community strategy, especially for low-income residents who can’t afford expensive improvements.
- Leverage Stevens County Economic Improvement Commission and Morris Chamber of Commerce to talk about PACE (to address small businesses).
- Request Commercial Direct Install Program from OTP and community volunteers to go out ahead of auditors.
- DEED campaign to get more even distribution of contractors.
- Group jobs for contractors to travel into town for (contractors seem to be limiting factor).
District Heating (19 votes)
Benefits
- Can reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Efficient
- Efficiency (smart thermostats)
- Small community – close proximity
- Save money
- Reliability – consistency for buildings
Challenges
- Education
- Cultural shift
- Education/outreach
- Economic
- Upfront capital
- Cost-sharing strategy
- Charge for boiler inputs
- How do you split costs?
- If expanding to homes, what’s the cost of overhead?
- Political
- Politics – cost savings
- System Management
- Who monitors systems?
- How do you bring others into the system?
Action Steps
- Efficiency upgrades
- Feasibility study
- Cost projection
- How long should projections look?
- Reliability on system – may worry about cold
- Demonstrate trickle-down effect of money in local economy
- Education/outreach – talk to parties (land owners, businesses)
- Stakeholders to be involved: school board, hospital board, city, nearby homes, University (regents)
- Determine if there’s interest – if one or two partners aren’t interested, how does the district work? Could you do one without the other partners?
- Could city participate?
- Enter discussion mode (from now through 2019)
- Education – ideological change
- New properties added to develop on existing properties
- Get local contractors involved
- Commitment – German sister city relationship
- Obtain funding
- Elective heating – storage
Local Energy Ownership and Microgrids (19 votes)
Benefits
- Economic
- Local wealth building
- Reinvestment if money is saved or made through energy production
- Increased local economic activity
- Reduces need for transmission and energy lost/expenses
- Resilience
- More community resilience / microgrid provides more stability in the face of climate change
- Community
- More awareness in communities about energy production
- To generate local knowledge about energy in Stevens Co.
- More local buy-in and involvement
- Reducing fossil fuel use (no one builds a coal microgrid)
Challenges
- Access to capital
- Would need to prove advantage for people who find existing system sufficient
- Policy
- Regulatory barriers
- Changing utility business models
- Maximizing tax benefits
- Rural Electric Associations (REAs) have lack of flexibility and are more conservative
- Utility pressure to not change
- Creating incentives through county
- Community Involvement
- Community buy-in
- Need people
- Overcoming differences in age/experience on the topic
Action Steps
- Stakeholders to be involved: local government; utilities; businesses; community members; solar energy installers
- Education/Community Involvement
- Increase public interest
- Educate community about benefits
- Encourage local government to make progress in GreenStep City programs
- Community conversations about local control
- Discussions at co-ops
- Local ownership supports community involvement in energy topics
- Policy
- Leverage utilities for creation of microgrids
- Utilities to sell renewable energy packages
- Tie local energy production to the electric car market
- Funding model that wouldn’t require too much up-front
Renewable Energy (9 votes)
Benefits
- Economic
- Supports local jobs
- Money stays in community
- Cost-effective in long-term
- Lowers utility bills (Ottertail is cheaper)
- Jobs
- Wind is cheapest source of energy
- Environmental
- Reduces emissions
- Clean
- Builds local interest – people are attracted to renewables when they can see it
- Stevens is best agricultural county in state
- Helps support grid and reduce pressure on it
- Limited long-term fossil fuel energy reserves
- Renewables including biomass:
- Manure, corn husks can be used
- Biochar from biomass production can be integrated into soil
Challenges
- Reliance on natural gas to reduce emissions leads to fracking
- Cash flow, capital costs: costs for individual installations and community-level
- Education
- Policy
- Space along roadways
- Aesthetic – some people consider it an eyesore
- Solar/wind first choice à Need energy storage
Action Steps
- Stakeholders: local/state government, consumers, media, investors, utilities
- Policy
- State policy
- Public Utility Commission to empower Morris to get renewable energy/solar power and retain renewable energy credits
- Implementation
- Create community solar gardens; Otter Tail should commit to community’s desire
- Negotiate with Ottertail to increase renewable generation
- Education
- Get media coverage/advertise (traditional news channels, radio, social media)
- Incorporated into K-12 education
- Promote to other communities and neighbor-to-neighbor to demonstrate value of benefits
- Advocate for renewables by leading by example
- Build intellectual power to advocate for renewables
- Economic
- Bulk buy → economy of scale (community solar installation)
- Identify funding
- Tax incentives
- Banks
- Zero-percent or low-cost loan
- Utility compensation
- Stevens County is larger than Morris (wider focus)
Batteries and Storage Technology (5 votes)
Benefits
- Reliability/resilience
- Economics
- Increased renewables
- Reduces pollution, addresses climate change
- Reduces carbon footprint
- Increased local microgrid use
Challenges
- Economics of installations
Action Steps
- Organize end users (identify goals – electric vehicles/storing solar)
- Talk with regulators
- Talk with utilities
- Streamline permitting
Community Questions Answered
We will continue adding answers to your questions as we hear back from local energy experts.
1. The proportion of coal has decreased, and solar and wind increased. But what about overall amounts? i.e. has amount of coal used also decreased, or just the proportion?
The amount of coal used has also decreased, largely displaced by natural gas and renewable energy in Minnesota. The Energy Administration Information breaks down Minnesota’s electricity sources from 1960-2015.
2. Is there a solar thermal incentive / rebate still available from the state?
There is no longer a solar thermal incentive for the state. The Made in Minnesota Solar Thermal incentive program was the last pool of funds for solar thermal in the state and it was repealed last year.
3. Will tariffs impact the trend of increasing solar in MN?
Tariffs will likely not heavily impact the residential solar market in MN as they will result in approximately 5% increases in pricing. However, commercial projects with tight margins including community solar and utility scale solar may see a near term decrease. Note that the tariff declines every year for four years until it is eliminated.
4. What is the lifetime of the batteries? What is the process of correctly disposing them?
The truth is that nobody is sure exactly how long the batteries will last. They are too new for us to have a good sense of long-term performance. I’m guessing that they have been sold with a 10-20 year functional life. Over time, performance will decrease and there may be a point where the battery is not worth using. That said, many of these systems are built with modular components that can be replaced. So if individual battery cells or electrodes were to fail, they could be replaced to maintain the battery system for a longer lifetime.
5. Even renewable batteries need replacement. What are the implications for disposal / pollution?
Many people are concerned because of past pollution and problems with lead batteries. Or they think about the heavy metals used in NiCad rechargeable batteries. Most of these new battery technologies use materials that are relatively safe and can be recycled fairly easily, given the infrastructure to do that. In fact, one of the batteries that I had the chance to look at used iron and sulfur as the main energy storage components. Iron and sulfur are both non-toxic to plants and the soil. This was done specifically because it was used at a vineyard that was concerned about a spill of the battery’s liquid iron-sulfur electrolyte solution.
My guess is that plastic and steel are the largest components of many of the batteries. These we have systems for recycling. I’m not sure about some of the other components, but remember the most common off-the-shelf battery systems use the same lithium based battery technologies used in modern electronics.
6. Given the high cost per megawatt of storage technologies, does the cost savings provided by a more efficient grid balance out the cost of installation?
The two main ways a battery saves money are: A) Allowing you to use energy you produce yourself, and B) Replacing the need to build new power plants for peak energy use. In way B), the battery is charged off peak when power is cheap and available, and it helps with the 4 or 5 hours peak energy demand per day. If your power costs are high and/or building new plants is expensive, yes battery installation will save money. This is why it works already in California. Battery technology is still too costly in areas like Minnesota with very cheap power and where we have the power production capabilities to meet peak needs. A combination of more wind/solar energy, retiring expensive coal plants, and cheaper battery technologies would make it economical in Minnesota.
7. Why would we not use geothermal heating in our district heating?
This is a good question and we will consider geothermal in the mix when the campus is converted to hot water. A hot water system will allow us to look at multiple ways to generate heat. We will analyze costs, maintenance and carbon impact as we look at the options. Carleton College is implementing a geothermal heating system for their campus buildings right now and we will certainly want to learn from their experience. The West Central Research and Outreach Center (WCROC) has a solar thermal demonstration and we will incorporate that data in our analysis.
