Environmental justice advocates are pushing back on proposals to include trash incinerators and wood biomass plants as carbon-free energy sources under a new state law that aims to make Minnesota power 100% carbon-free by 2040.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC), a governor-appointed board that regulates utility providers, is collecting input on what should count as carbon-free energy and has received comments from utility companies, the forestry industry and state agencies suggesting that greenhouse gas emitting sources like waste-to-energy incinerators and wood biomass burning plants should be included. 

For several environmental groups and lawmakers, those suggestions are alarming and go against the intent of the law. The law defines carbon-free sources as those that generate electricity “without emitting carbon dioxide,” which would include sources like wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear power. 

“This should be a very easy question to answer,” said Andrea Lovoll of the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table.  

Some state agencies and utility companies disagree. 

Two top Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) officials submitted a letter arguing that the PUC should allow waste-to-energy trash incinerators and wood biomass to count as carbon-free because they produce energy with waste that could create more greenhouse gas in the form of methane, a potent pollutant, if sent to a landfill. 

Assistant commissioners Frank Kohlasch and Kirk Koudelka said the PUC should take a big-picture view of overall emissions, rather than just looking at the “point of generation” to determine if an energy source is carbon-free. 

And they said the agency has flexibility within the law to determine “partial compliance with the standard for such fuels.”

That is not what DFL lawmakers had in mind when they passed the bill, a group of legislators and environmentalists said Wednesday. 

“Carbon-free means carbon-free,” said Representative Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis. 

Lawmakers expect the state government to implement laws, Hornstein said, not muddy the waters. The 100% carbon-free energy bill is a good goal, he said, but there are no guarantees the 2040 deadline will be met. He pointed out that the Legislature approved a 2014 mandate that metro counties recycle 75% of their waste by 2030, but recycling rates have stagnated and the goal looks out of reach.

“I see a parallel,” he said. 

Cecilia Calvo, director of advocacy and inclusion at Minnesota Environmental Partnership, said she is disappointed that polluting sources are being considered. It shows that passing legislation is only the first step, and that people need to follow the implementation process closely. 

“Ultimately, I think there will be industry and others that will find a way to push and protect their interests,” Calvo said. 

Controversial sources 

Trash incinerators are considered renewable energy sources in most Minnesota jurisdictions, but that has long been a contentious point with environmental justice advocates who point to the substantial pollution created by those facilities and their locations near diverse, low-income areas. Minnesota lawmakers stripped the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) in Minneapolis of its renewable energy status when they passed the 100% clean energy bill in 2023. Six of the seven incinerators in Minnesota are still considered renewable energy sources, which is a lesser standard than being “carbon-free.” 

Wood biomass, the burning of wood chips to produce electricity, has controversially been considered carbon-neutral for years. The technology is popular in the European Union, which often sources its wood from the United States and Canada. 

Minnesota Power operates a large wood biomass facility in Duluth, the Hibbard Renewable Energy Center, and submitted comments to the PUC arguing that the technology should be considered carbon-free. But that facility produces a large amount of greenhouse gas pollution, according to a 2021 study examining Minnesota Power’s operations. The study was commissioned by Fresh Energy, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the Sierra Club. 

A coalition of environmental groups led by rural advocacy organization CURE submitted a comment letter Friday arguing that including trash incineration and wood biomass as renewable energy sources would allow further greenhouse gas pollution near diverse and low-income areas. 

“Our pathway to carbon-free electricity should be grounded in the dual goals of achieving real emissions reductions while also assuring that already overburdened communities don’t bear undue costs,” the group wrote. 

The PUC received dozens of comments on their query and plans to hold a hearing to decide what counts as carbon-free sources in late September, but doesn’t have a set date for the hearing or a decision, according to a commission spokeswoman. 

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit digital newsroom covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color.

Does carbon-free mean carbon-neutral? Activists, industry fight over details in new Minnesota energy law is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

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Minneapolis is creating a new climate action plan with ambitious goals to address pollution disparities that hit communities of color the hardest, but environmental justice advocates are criticizing a lack of dedicated funding. 

A draft of the Minneapolis Climate and Equity Plan calls for large investments in insulating homes, lowering residential energy bills, cleaning up indoor and outdoor air, and increasing tree planting and green spaces. Many of those initiatives call for executing the work first in the cities’ Green Zones, areas in north and south Minneapolis with high levels of pollution and concentrations of people of color. 

The plan, which also aims to lower carbon emissions, is supported by environmental justice organizations, but they want to see real money and clear timelines included. The Just Transition Coalition, a group of climate, labor, and immigrant advocacy organizations, held a June 7 rally calling for the city to raise $10 million in dedicated funding for the plan’s first year. The coalition includes MN350, Unidos, Service Employees International Union, and the faith group ISAIAH. 

“Recent state and federal legislation has delivered massive investments in climate action, creating an opportunity to expand what is possible and position the city to lead at the speed and scale the climate crisis requires,” said MN350 Executive Director Tee McClenty. “Minneapolis has the opportunity to be a healthy, sustainable city that prioritizes the wellbeing of all residents no matter our race or income.”

Emphasizing equity 

The Minneapolis Climate Equity Plan is an update of the city’s climate action plan, which originally passed in 2013. The older plan established the city’s Green Zones. But racial equity provisions in that plan were more of an afterthought, according to the city’s sustainability director, Kim Havey. 

“With this plan, we really wanted to make it a forethought,” Havey said.

As a result, the city consulted several groups that work with immigrant communities and neighborhood councils in the most diverse parts of Minneapolis. The feedback they provided went directly into the plans, he said. 

The draft plan focuses on 10 areas to create a more sustainable city. It includes calls for developing a clean energy workforce, recycling and composting 80 percent of waste by 2030, investing millions into weatherizing homes and buildings, and boosting public transit and improving pedestrian and bike infrastructure in order to reduce vehicle mileage.

The final version will include a year-long implantation plan, Havey said. There are provisions with immediate funding that can happen fast, he said, such as starting to weatherize homes and equipping aging housing stock with improved air filtration systems. Minneapolis has about  $1.5 million from the federal COVID-19 response bill and block grants that it will spend on such work in the Green Zones, he said. 

Their vision is to target blocks and multifamily buildings in the Green Zones that are known to be old and inefficient, and offering weatherization services such as better insulation and replacing old gas appliances for free or at very low cost. Residents who don’t want the improvements can opt out. This more systematic approach can provide real benefits fast, Havey said.

The city is already using some federal funds to boost tree planting on private property. There will also be immediate action on reducing plastic waste in restaurants by banning black plastic food containers and plastic straws and disposable silverware, which are all unrecyclable. 

“I think you’re going to start seeing some significant changes,” Havey said. 

Those changes will cost real money, he said. The city’s large weatherization proposal could cost as much as $1 billion, the Star Tribune reported in March.  

Asking for funding, interpretation 

Dozens of Minneapolis residents attended the city’s public health and safety committee meeting on June 7 to demand funding and stricter timelines for the plan. Among them was Lizete Vega Rodriguez, a resident of the Phillips neighborhood who immigrated from Mexico.

Vega Rodriguez wanted to testify to represent the Latino community. Most people like her are working during the day, and can’t attend an afternoon city meeting, she explained in Spanish, but they still care greatly about the climate. 

“We are some of the most affected by environmental injustice,” Vega Rodriguez said.

Vega Rodriquez first got involved in the plan last year through her congregation at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. The city had interpreters during listening sessions with the south side Green Zone, and told attendees they’d publish the city’s climate plan in Spanish, Vega Rodriquez recalled. 

Right now, the city’s 100-page draft plan includes a two-page summary translated into the Hmong, Oromo, Spanish, and Somali languages. Immigrant communities are impacted by high pollution levels, and deserve to read the full plan, Vega Rodriquez said.

Samarra Meek, with labor union SEIU 26, lived most of her life in north Minneapolis, and has asthma. She said when she moved a couple miles away to a neighborhood with better air quality, her symptoms improved. But moving shouldn’t be necessary, she said. 

“I just want for our kids to have a better future,” she said. 

Getting involved 

Environmental group MN350 has its own vision, called The People’s Climate and Equity Plan, which began about five years ago among talks of a Green New Deal. The group partnered with other organizations to draft a local version for Minneapolis, according to senior organizer Ulla Nilsen. 

MN350 says the time is ripe for the city to invest, with large amounts of funding becoming available through the federal government via laws like the Inflation Reduction Act, and from the state Legislature, which approved large climate and environmental justice packages. The group wants to see a permanent revenue stream established to fund climate justice and resiliency work.

“Minneapolis needs to fill in the gaps,” Nilsen said. 

On a sunny Tuesday in late May, MN350 partnered on an event with Rusty and the Crew, a North Side nonprofit that works to help people recycle. They collected signatures for MN350’s petition to compel the city to support The People’s Climate and Equity Plan, and submitted public comments asking for dedicated funding. 

Audua Pugh founded Rusty and the Crew in 2013 after becoming passionate about recycling organic and non-organic waste. The group sets up waste stations in family homes to help people recycle better. It’s one way every individual can make a difference, Pugh said. 

Black communities on the North Side care about climate change, but often don’t have time to attend local meetings to get involved, she said. But they care when someone connects with them, she added, citing her experiences with her recycling outreach. 

Reducing what goes in the trash helps improve local air quality by sending less waste to the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC), the county’s trash incinerator. Many see individual environmental issues as separate, but Pugh wants people to understand that they’re all connected. 

“This is me trying to bring organizations together and trying to get environmental orgs in one place,” she said.  

Candy Bakion signed the petition, and said she wants future generations to have better air quality. 

“I want some green trees in my neighborhood, so that my energy bill will go down,” Bakion said. 

Her three-bedroom home’s electrical bill can climb as high as $300 per month, Bakion said. She’s signed up for a community solar garden that was installed on North High School’s roof more than two years ago, but hasn’t been able to take advantage of it because she’s waiting for Xcel Energy to connect the array, which would allow it to produce electricity. 

The city received more than 800 comments on the draft plan, Havey said. Most asked for more specifics about how the plan will be implemented, and more ways for individual residents to make a difference. 

The Minneapolis City Council is expected to vote on a final version of the plan in August. The plan would be implemented over the next decade. Havey said there is implementation agenda for the first year.

New Minneapolis climate plan lays out ambitious goals, but advocates criticize lack of funding is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for Sahan’s free newsletter to receive stories in your inbox.

When Minnesota legislators passed a law committing to 100 percent clean energy by 2040, they included a small but important provision: Hennepin County’s waste to energy trash incinerator can no longer be considered a source of renewable energy. 

The move represented a significant victory for the environmental justice movement in the Twin Cities. The Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, widely known as the HERC, is a pollution source located on the edge of the North Loop neighborhood in downtown Minneapolis, that impacts residents of the north side and downtown. 

Since its construction in the late 1980s, the facility has been criticized by climate organizers who say its pollution is most felt by Minnesotans of color who experience lower air quality and poorer health outcomes.  

“That was legislators hearing community and stepping up,” said Nazir Khan with the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, a nonprofit organization that campaigns against incinerators across the state. 

Now, Hennepin County is in the midst of creating a zero waste plan that aims to divert 90 percent of all waste from landfills and incinerators. But officials have been hesitant to put a deadline on closing the controversial incinerator that they say plays a vital role in managing trash in the state’s largest county. 

“We hope we get to a position where facilities like HERC and landfills are no longer required,” said Dave McNary, assistant director of Hennepin County’s energy and environment department. 

Environmental justice advocates say the new law and the pending zero waste plan are creating a ripe opportunity for the county to announce a timeline to shut the facility. But many in the fight say the county is not pushing hard enough to make closing the incinerator a viable option. 

Hennepin County leaders know the law will change operations for the HERC at some level, but are still determining what that impact will be. 

“Given the recent passage of the Clean Energy Bill and the growing momentum to address environmental justice concerns, Hennepin must carefully consider how to responsibly and proactively respond. These conversations are already underway, and I expect to be able to share more concrete commitments within a year,” Irene Fernando, chair of the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners, said in a statement to Sahan Journal. 

Losing renewable energy status

The HERC and Minnesota’s six other incinerators are waste-to-energy facilities. The HERC burns trash to create steam, which is used to heat its neighbor, baseball stadium Target Field, and parts of the North Loop. The steam is also converted into energy, which is sold to Xcel Energy. For decades, state law deemed the facilities a source of renewable energy. 

While the state’s six other incinerators maintain that status, waste experts and environmental justice advocates cheered the change in the HERC’s designation in Minnesota’s new clean energy law. The clean energy bill stipulated that incinerators could not be considered sources of renewable energy if they were located near an environmental justice community defined by income and racial diversity benchmarks. 

For the county, the HERC’s purpose is to manage solid waste, and energy production is considered a secondary benefit, according to McNary. The HERC manages 365,000 tons of trash each year, about 45 percent of all waste produced in the county.

The HERC will no longer be able to sell renewable energy credits based on the power it produces, but that change is not expected to impact their bottom line, McNary said. Revenue from credits reached $2.5 million in 2017, but the county hasn’t earned any money on credits since 2018, according to McNary and financial documents.  

The HERC is a profitable operation that primarily earns money through a payment known as tipping fees when waste haulers deposit garbage at the facility fees. This year the facility projects to make $25.1 million in tipping fees. The facility also earns between $3 million to $8 million annually selling electricity, and makes money by selling steam and scrap metal salvaged from the trash. 

“We never depend on renewable energy credits,” McNary said. 

The county will pay Great River Energy $25.1 million to operate the HERC for 2023, which covers supplies, commodities, and labor costs for 56 workers, including 38 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The HERC will also spend $2.8 million disposing of ash in a specialized landfill. 

While the new law might not change the financial outlook of the HERC, the designation is more in line with scientific reality, according to professor Sintana Vergara, who studies waste at Humboldt State University. Renewable energy comes from natural sources like water, wind, and sunlight—incineration of trash is essentially the opposite, she said. 

“You’re burning plastic and paper,” Vergara said. 

Minnesota’s new law is a major step forward for the climate movement, but it will not enforce a total shutdown on all polluting energy facilities. Producers will still be able to offset emissions from polluting facilities with renewable energy credits from clean sources. Minnesota is awash with renewable energy credits, according to Hudson Kingston, an Ely -based environmental lawyer with PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.   

Great River Energy operates large wind power facilities in the Dakotas that generate renewable credits it could use to keep the HERC running and stay in compliance with Minnesota law, he said. 

Managing trash 

Inside the HERC, the smell of mixed trash quickly overwhelms the nostrils before settling into a bearable background stench. Dump trucks from public trash collectors and private contractors weigh in and back their vehicles up to a lasered tipping line. Their loads are dumped on the edge of a massive trash pit, and are pushed into the pile by front-loading tractors. 

A large crane plucks up the waste, like a giant claw machine digging for stuffed animals at an arcade, and drags it to a loader to be burned. The waste consists of hundreds of bags of trash, broken furniture, apple cores, and thousands of miscellaneous items and papers. 

“As you look at our pile, you see a lot of recyclable material,” said Randy Kiser, administrative manager for the HERC. 

Workers at the HERC try to separate out major recyclable materials, Kiser said. He pointed to an industrial paper roll that the crane operator had set aside that will be recycled, but a lot slips through the cracks and gets burned. 

Kiser and McNary have nearly 60 years of combined experience with Hennepin County waste management. While there have been improvements in local recycling in that time, both say the progress hasn’t been that significant.  

The county knows the HERC is a source of greenhouse gas emissions, and says it does its best to control that pollution. This is done with a series of pollution mitigation techniques, but also by controlling the fires that burn the trash. Burning at higher temperatures helps regulate emissions. In a large control room inside the HERC, employees from Great River Energy can see emission levels of various pollutants in real time, and can tweak the fire to try to make the trash burn cleaner. 

But burning trash is inherently not clean, Vergara said. The HERC is a significant pollution source in Minneapolis, according to data from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. In 2021, it produced 403 tons of nitrogen oxide, which is known to cause asthma, and produced 180,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, a leading cause of global warming.

The facility also releases lead, mercury, and particulate matter under 2.5 microns (PM 2.5), which are tiny particles that have negative health impacts when inhaled. The HERC regularly stays well under permitted pollution levels, Kiser said. 

The HERC experienced a spike in mercury emissions in 2021, according to the pollution control agency’s “Air We Breathe” report, but still was under its permitted levels for the substance. 

Setting a deadline 

Minneapolis residents organizing against the HERC want the county to officially commit to a deadline to close the facility. But neither the county’s climate action plan of 2021 nor the draft of its zero waste plan commit to closing the incinerator. 

“There’s this incredible wariness to bring a shutdown date,” Khan said.  

For waste management professionals like McNary, the realities of current consumption patterns and trash build up among average residents present a daunting challenge. The average county resident produces 2,000 pounds of trash per year, and that trash needs to be handled. 

Participants in the zero waste draft plan feel that leaders in county waste management were not taking the steps needed to really move toward a HERC-free future. 

“I feel like a lot of onus is put on the community to provide answers to questions the county should be answering on its own,” said Charles Frempong-Longdon with Minnesota Environmental Justice Table. 

The Hennepin County Climate Action Plan said the county sees the HERC as preferable to burying garbage in landfills, because it says the centralized location minimizes vehicle emissions for haulers, recaptures scrap metal, and reduces methane emissions from landfills. 

For environmental justice organizers, a crucial component of the impact of incinerators is their proximity to underserved communities disproportionately inhabited by people of color.  

While officials are hesitant to put forth a shutdown date without clear alternatives for places to put the trash, advocates and experts say deadlines can be great motivators to solving issues. 

“If you don’t set the goal, you’re certainly not going to do it,” Vergara said. 

But leaders are considering more definite moves to closing the HERC. The final zero waste plan is expected to be presented to the county board in May, and the board will vote on it as part of a broader solid waste management plan. 

“In order to be responsive to residents’ concerns and advance our climate action goals, it’s clear that Hennepin County must take serious steps toward closing the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center,” Fernando said. 

Getting to zero waste

Today, 39 percent of all waste in Hennepin County is diverted from incinerators and landfills by recycling and composting. The county’s current goal is to raise that level to 75 percent by 2030. But the zero waste plan is aiming to create a future where 90 percent of all waste can be diverted.

Getting there will take policy and cultural shifts. Hennepin County’s zero waste draft plan organizes steps to achieving zero waste into three stages. There are easier goals like increasing recycling and organics recycling participation in multifamily buildings and increasing education in specific communities. 

And there are more complex milestones like adding options for bulk item collection and electronics recycling, and connecting building companies and architects to programs that enable them to reuse more materials. 

Two easier items, called “low hanging fruit” in the draft plan, include establishing milestones to phase out the HERC as the county approaches zero waste, and to evaluate short-term upgrades that would reduce pollution from the HERC.  

“We need strong partnership and state leadership on a range of zero waste policies. We need to require manufacturers and businesses to be responsible for the packaging waste they create. We need recycling and composting services accessible to all residents at an appropriate scale, especially for apartment or office buildings,” Fernando said. 

Two strategies are critical for reaching zero waste, Vergara said. One is source reduction: society needs to produce less waste by designing more durable products and repairing and reusing what we already have. The second is source separation: making sure compost is compost, or that paper is properly recycled and not mixed with other waste that can make it unrecyclable. 

“The culture and the moment we live in now is one of tremendous waste generation and consumption,” Vergara said.

Minneapolis trash incinerator loses renewable energy designation, but deadline for closure remains evasive is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for Sahan’s free newsletter to receive stories in your inbox.

MAHNOMEN — Near the tall grasses outside White Earth Tribal and Community College, students huddled around a small ground-mounted-unit solar array on an unusually warm October day. The trainees, ranging in age from recent high school graduates to people in their 60s, took turns connecting wires, testing voltage, and flipping switches that connected the panels to a large battery. 

“Be gentle with the wires,” instructor George Lemelin cautioned them. “Take your time, relax, no worry or hurry about anything.” 

The five students were wrapping up a 45-hour solar-energy training certificate program that gives a basic introduction to electrical work with an emphasis on solar power. To test their knowledge, the group assembled, connected, tested, and powered up a ground-mounted solar array. 

For Andrew Goodwin, 45, the course is a chance to change careers. After 20 years of union masonry jobs, he’s looking for rewarding work that’s easier on his body. He sees opportunities for trade work in solar in northwestern Minnesota. 

“I’d like to make my own system and sell it,” he said. 

Solar energy jobs are on the rise in Minnesota, and new workers are in demand, according to a new report published by Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, a nonprofit organization that promotes renewable energy. The solar industry grew 9% last year, the report found, higher than the 5%growth seen overall in clean-energy jobs, which include heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, clean-car production, and renewable energy like wind and solar power. 

But 84% of companies in the clean energy sector reported trouble hiring qualified workers, according to Gregg Mast, executive director of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota. 

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act expanded and extended existing tax credits on solar power projects for commercial and residential users, which renewable energy experts believe will supercharge growth in the sector. 

“We expect the job opportunities to significantly expand,” Mast said. 

A partnership with benefits for all 

The solar certification program is a partnership between the White Earth Tribal and Community College and Rural Renewable Energy Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on using solar power to help alleviate poverty in northern Minnesota. 

In 2019, the Rural Renewable Energy Alliance and White Earth Nation received funding from Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Legacy Fund to install about 200 kilowatts of solar power around the reservation. Construction occurred in 2020 and 2021 at five sites, including on the college campus and at the Head Start center. The tribe and Energy Alliance decided to deepen their ties, and launched the training program in November 2020. 

The two-week, 45-hour course is basically a paid internship. Students earn an hourly wage, and they leave with a certification that lets them work on any solar job site in Minnesota and an electricians kit.  

Lemelin, a pastor, teaches the course. He’s a fan of alternative energy sources first drawn to solar by the Y2K movement, when many people feared a collapse of the traditional power grid upon the dawn of a new millennium. 

“We need to use all the resources out there to make sure we all have enough,” Lemelin said. 

He invited a former parishioner, Vernon Jackson, to take the course in March. Jackson, 27, works in the maintenance department for the Shooting Star Casino on the reservation. He liked the solar course, and  now uses some of what he learned there in his current job. 

“The fact that we can harvest that power and convert that to energy, I like that a lot,” Jackson said. 

Jackson joined a group of course finishers who worked for a few days on a Minnesota Power project at a 15-megawatt installation near Baxter. He’s interested in doing more solar energy work in the future.  

Expanding opportunities 

On October 21, White Earth Tribal and Community College received a new designation that will give its students more opportunities in the solar-energy field. It was informed that it is now a North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners testing site. That means students can become accredited solar installers, which will allow them to earn higher wages. 

With the basic certification course, students can earn at least $20 per hour on the job. But as they gain more experience and become certified through the board, those wages can rise to around $43 per hour, according to Jennifer Jacquot-DeVries, interim director of the Rural Renewable Energy Alliance. 

A major attraction of the program, and of new testing accreditation on campus, is that tribal members don’t have to leave home to earn the qualifications, said Bridget Guiza, customized-education coordinator for the college.

“We’re trying to sync up these goals to meet industry demands and community needs,” she said. 

Guiza has ambitious goals for the program, and recently submitted a request for a workforce training grant from the Department of Energy to expand with a hope of graduating more than 200 students in the next three years. She hopes White Earth can partner with other tribal colleges in Minnesota to develop similar programs on other campuses. 

The workforce for green-energy jobs continues to be more diverse than the overall workforce in Minnesota, according to the Clean Energy Economy Minnesota report. The clean-energy job workforce is 26.6%people of color, while people of color make up 22.5% of the state’s population, according to the 2020 Census.

A window into a world of work possibilities

As Lemelin’s students connected the solar grid, the sun broke through the clouds and the four-panel array jumped up to 184 volts of load output.

Elias Lowry, a recent high school graduate from White Earth, measured the output using a meter reader. 

Lowry, 19, said he was considering going to school in Moorhead to pursue an auto technical degree when his mom saw an advertisement for the solar course in the local paper. He decided to sign up. He said he liked learning about solar panels and thinks the industry will continue to grow. 

“It opens your eyes up to a lot of opportunities,” he said. 

White Earth Tribal College becomes a bright spot for solar energy job training is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit news organization that covers Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color.

Minnesota’s clean energy jobs are coming back strong from losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report. 

More than 11,500 workers in the state’s clean energy industry filed for unemployment in 2020, due to slowdowns for in-person work caused by COVID-19, an August report by the nonprofit Clean Energy Economy Minnesota found. About half of those workers were back in the labor force by the end of the year, with 55,300 people employed in clean energy jobs statewide by December. 

Minnesota’s clean energy workforce — people employed in energy efficiency, carbon-free fuel sources like solar and wind power, and related fields — is more diverse than the state’s labor force as a whole, according to data compiled by Clean Energy Economy Minnesota. But industry experts say the field continues to be dominated by white men and more needs to be done to ensure opportunities in the green economy for people of color and women. 

Now, green energy firms like Center for Energy and Environment and advocacy groups such as Unidos MN are working to get people of color into well-paying careers in the growing field. 

“Unidos is exploring how to successfully provide pathways for the green and clean energy economy for BIPOC people, in ways that build sustainable, mutliracial worker power,” Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, executive director of Unidos MN, told Sahan Journal. 

Green job diversity, by the numbers 

A clean energy job can fall into a couple of different areas, explains Virginia Rutter, a community relations manager with Clean Energy Economy Minnesota. The work may involve cleaning up the power grid by transitioning to carbon-free fuel sources such as solar and wind; or making buildings, appliances, and transportation sources more energy efficient.

Energy efficiency is overwhelmingly the largest clean-energy employment sector in the state, according to the report, accounting for 75% of all jobs. The bulk of those jobs are in construction. Others include electricians, energy-efficiency auditors, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) technicians, and weatherization specialists. 

Renewable energy jobs are growing fast in Minnesota, the report found. More than 4,400 Minnesotans work in solar. Wind jobs grew by 8% in 2020, to 2,536 workers. Advanced transportation — the construction of electric and hybrid vehicles — also saw additions in 2020, with 3,252 Minnesotans now working in those fields. 

The makeup of the state’s clean energy workforce is more diverse than the workforce as a whole, the report found. Overall 86.4% of Minnesota workers are white, but that rate drops to 72.6% for clean energy workers. People identifying as Latino or Hispanic represent 17.5% of clean energy workers, compared to 5.4% of the total workforce. Black Minnesotans account for 6.9% of the green energy workforce, compared to 5.4% of state workers overall. 

Those figures are more in line with recent 2020 Census results, which reported the share of white Minnesotans dropped from 83% in 2010 to 76.3% today. But industry experts say they haven’t seen that diversity in the field. 

“That has not been my experience,” Chris Duffrin, president of the Minnesota nonprofit Center for Energy and Environment, told Sahan Journal. 

Traditionally, the industry has been dominated by white men, Duffrin said, while the customer base of people seeking energy-efficiency improvements has become more diverse with shifting demographics.

Where clean energy jobs truly come up short is in gender diversity. The state’s overall workforce is 48% female, but just 27.4% of clean energy jobs are held by women, the report found. 

“Energy is the nexus of a bunch of fields that are historically male-dominated,” Rutter said, referring to construction, finance, engineering, and banking. 

Improving access to job training

Groups like Unidos are working to bring more job training centers to neighborhoods with high percentages of people of color. 

Many union training centers sit outside the Minneapolis–St.Paul core, making access difficult for people of color. It’s critical, Gonzalez Avalos said, to make a pathway to future green energy careers for the working class people and communities of color that bear the brunt of pollution.

“It has to be culturally competent and grounded in multiracial solidarity,” she said. 

Robert Blake, founder and president of the solar company Solar Bear and the nonprofit Native Sun, is focusing on creating a green energy workforce on Minnesota’s tribal lands. As an enrolled member of Red Lake Nation, Blake wants to develop a Tribal Utilities Commission and establish energy independence in Indian country.

In 2020, he launched a nonprofit, Native Sun, which includes the Just Solar Workforce program to train tribal members for clean energy jobs. Blake, now a member of the Governor’s Workforce Development Board, started as a community solar salesperson in 2015 and has seen tremendous growth in the industry. Demand for solar installers, technicians, and electricians is high, he said, and more people are interested in getting involved in the industry for financial opportunities and the chance to be part of a broader transition. 

“I think what gets people interested in what we do is when we talk about the social and environmental benefits,” he said. 

In the Twin Cities, the Center for Energy and Environment is partnering with Xcel Energy to create workforce training programs that will emphasize recruiting people of color and giving them skills to enter fields such as energy auditing and home insulation and weatherization. 

The program, set to start in late 2021 or early next year, will begin by recruiting residents in east St. Paul and north Minneapolis, two of the most diverse sections of the Twin Cities. The programs will provide paid training to participants. A smaller group will be connected to paid internships after the basic training, but all should leave certified for in-demand work. 

The program is paid for by Xcel Energy through the state’s Conservation Improvement Program, which was recently updated in the 2021 Energy Conservation and Optimization (ECO) Act to require utilities to invest more in low-income communities. The program will partner with community groups to recruit participants within neighborhoods, including people who speak languages other than English at home, Duffrin said.  

 “We see this opportunity now to really intentionally diversify the energy workforce,” he said.  

Job versus career

The biggest area for growth in the clean energy industry exists in entry-level jobs such as energy auditors or solar installers. Those roles typically pay between $18–$22 per hour, a wage better than many retail jobs, but likely not enough to sustain a family, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economy cost of living calculator. 

Groups like Unidos want to see better pathways for people of color to move from entry-level work to managerial and skilled labor roles that can provide wealth-building opportunities. 

“We still have this disparity between white workers and workers of color,” Gonzalez Avalos said. 

Duffrin said a major goal of the workforce center with Xcel Energy is to put people on a path to jobs that pay upwards of $25 to $30 an hour, with solid benefits. There should be opportunities for those on the ground floor to move up, he said. 

The clean jobs report projects an 8 percent increase in the industry in 2021, and experts are optimistic that growth will represent just the beginning of what should be decades of new job opportunities. Making society carbon neutral to fend off the worst impacts of climate change will require a massive infrastructure investment and untold amounts of labor. 

“I’m not sure we’ve wrapped our heads around just how much this is going to grow,” Duffrin said. 

Minnesota clean energy jobs rebounded — but workers of color need more opportunities is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.