St. Paul, Minn. – On Thursday, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (Commission) advanced stakeholder recommendations and formally established planning requirements for three of Minnesota’s largest natural gas utilities. Gas resource planning is driven by the Commission’s mission to ensure safe, reliable, and affordable utility service that is consistent with Minnesota’s laws. The initiative was started following the 2021 gas price spike from Winter Storm Uri, which demonstrated a need for a more comprehensive planning approach to protect consumers from commodity price volatility.
Resource planning is a forward-looking process designed to identify resources needed to provide reliable service to Minnesotans. Electric resource planning has been part of Minnesota’s regulatory process for years; however, gas resource planning is new to Minnesota and modeled after similar efforts underway in other states.
To spur this, the Commission convened a range of stakeholders, including the gas utilities, consumer advocates, clean energy organizations, and labor, to help clarify what gas resource planning in Minnesota should look like. At Thursday’s meeting, the Commission established the key pieces of gas resource plans and the process to ensure public participation, consideration of costs, infrastructure, and state decarbonization goals.
The key decisions include:
- Establishing resource plan requirements for gas utilities.
- Requiring utilities to evaluate different ways to ensure they have enough gas to serve customers at a reasonable cost.
- Providing information about utility distribution system investments and evaluating whether there are opportunities to use new technologies to avoid some infrastructure projects.
“Given the rapidly changing energy landscape, integrated resource planning will help us to keep rates affordable and ensure energy reliability” said Chair Katie Sieben. “I appreciate the stakeholder contributions to advancing gas resource planning in yesterday’s hearing and their willingness to engage on these important topics.”
Over the next several months, the Commission will continue to hear from stakeholders on the details of gas planning. To stay up to date the issue, visit our website.
About
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.
