I posted recently about reliability issues in the Midwest, but in light of the continued controversy about the Nemadji Trail Energy Center, I thought it’d be good to do a follow up post on reliability as Minnesota continues the clean energy transition. Soon after I joined MREA, I posted a twitter thread about my thoughts on reliability after going back and forth a few times between being a clean energy advocate (at the Center for Energy and Environment and the Clean Grid Alliance) and being an electric utility guy (first at Xcel Energy and now at the MREA). This post summarizes and expands on that twitter thread.

Reliability means something different to utilities than to advocates: From having lived in both worlds for a good part of my career, I’m convinced reliability means something different to an electric utility than it does to a clean energy advocate. For a utility, reliability is a duty, an obligation, a solemn responsibility. That’s especially true for a rural electric co-op, where co-op leaders have to face their neighbors at church or the grocery store – “I face a rate case while I’m pumping gas” as one leader put it.

Co-op leaders are responsible to their neighbors about how they’re able to live their lives, do their jobs, heat their homes. And as the penetration of electric vehicles increase, they have to be sure their neighbors can drive their cars to work, to hockey, back and forth from the lake. It’s a heavy responsibility and these leaders bear that responsibility gladly. It’s part of why they do what they do.

For advocates, reliability is important, but not nearly to the same degree or intensity as for electric utilities. It’s something they know they need to pay some attention to, but it’s not more important than decarbonizing the economy. Reliability is something that advocates expect utilities will take care of because utilities always have.

For utilities, reliability is a minute to minute, hour by hour, year by year, decade by decade responsibility, an uncompromising necessity. For clean energy advocates, reliability takes a back seat to the longer term but deeply urgent need to decarbonize. For these advocates, that’s also an uncompromising necessity.

Nothing about this grid transition is simple: Minnesota electric utilities are all decarbonizing much faster and much deeper than I’d ever expected – I’ve been working in this area for nearly 30 years, and the power supply transition has been incredibly fast for an industry that, by design, takes a long view on investments. As that clean energy transition goes deeper into power supply, electric utilities will discover important reliability issues that need to be paid attention to and adequately addressed, just as they have on the transition to date.

I’d counsel my clean energy friends to give utilities the space and grace they need to do that, to help and support those efforts, and to not discount reliability issues. The grid is the most fantastic, complex machine ever created, and nothing about it is simple.

Hard Fact: The hard fact is, if there becomes a significant or widespread concern about the reliability of electric service in Minnesota, the clean energy transition in Minnesota will grid to a halt. If the warnings of rolling blackouts in the Midwest that we heard from reliability regulators and the Midwest Independent System Operator earlier this summer, we will collectively lose the social license to continue the clean energy transition in our state. Electric co-op members, electric utility customers, voters, legislators, regulators won’t allow that transition to continue.

And that won’t be good for anyone.

Minnesota utilities are working in good faith to solve difficult problems. So, to my friends and former clean energy colleagues, be careful and cautious in your advocacy. Know that Minnesota electric utilities are working in good faith on the complex, multi-dimensional puzzle of decarbonizing electric supply while maintaining reliability and affordability. It’s maddening to see advocates pushing for greater dependance on electricity for transportation, home heating and other uses (which we definitely support), while at the same time, opposing the critical utility investments needed to ensure the reliability of that increased use of electricity.

Ensuring reliability of the grid is fundamental to the electric utility mission. That’s the job – you can trust that Minnesota utilities are doing that job.

If you hear a Minnesota electric utility raise a reliability concern, please don’t leap to the conclusion that they are using that concern as an excuse to try to stop or slow the clean energy transition. The actual opposite of that is true – electric utilities are working to solve or avoid reliability issues so that the transition can continue.