St. Paul, Minnesota — On Thursday, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (Commission) approved Xcel Energy’s Resiliency Service Program. This is Minnesota’s first program to support resiliency projects for commercial and industrial customers.
The program will provide support through Xcel Energy ownership, installation, operation, and maintenance of resiliency assets such as battery storage, solar arrays, and back-up generators at the customer site. The program provides customers with greater flexibility to choose resiliency options that best meet their needs and work with Xcel and its contractors to design, construct and maintain their system.
Xcel developed this program based on learnings from resiliency programs in Minnesota and other states, including Wisconsin. In Xcel’s Wisconsin program, current resiliency projects under development include enhancements to municipal water and wastewater facilities, healthcare facilities and large manufacturers.
“There are customers that cannot tolerate disruptions to their electric service. This program will allow critical sites to operate independently from the electric grid in the event of an extended outage,” said Commissioner Joseph Sullivan. “In our discussion we addressed concerns brought up through the public comment process such as access to marketing data, interconnection, and reporting requirements.”
The Commission ensured that all costs for the program would be paid for by the participants and not other ratepayers. The Commission also made modifications to the program to prohibit Xcel from using customer data to target customers for marketing and require that installation work would be completed by independent third-party vendors.
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The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission regulates three cornerstone service industries in Minnesota's economy: electricity, natural gas and telephone. The Commission’s mission is to create and maintain a regulatory environment that ensures safe, adequate, and efficient utility services at fair, reasonable rates consistent with State telecommunications and energy policies. It does so by providing independent, consistent, professional, and comprehensive oversight and regulation of utility service providers. Learn more at mn.gov/puc.
