Guest Blog

The following blog is a guest post by Nina Axelson, founder of Grid Catalyst. “Our partnership with CEEM has been an integral part of our launch and initial success as an accelerator program. Through our work together, we have envisioned and activated the beginning of something truly transformative for our region. I am truly excited for this next chapter for our partnership and for the energy innovation ecosystem in Minnesota.”

LHB’s Climate Solutions studio has worked with many local governments on sustainability and climate action planning. As more organizations commit to emissions reduction goals, the studio is expanding to support developers, institutions, and agencies such as SouthWest Transit.

Electric cooperatives are technical and experienced organizations that are capable of large-scale renewable energy deployment and innovation necessary for the energy transition. Cooperatives serve over 42 million people, and provide power to over 21 million businesses, homes, schools, and farms in 48 states.

By now, many have heard about the little green bugs crawling into the news, firewood and millions of ash trees across the country. The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) is this invasive species that will soon infect and kill most of the ash trees in Minnesota. Minnesota is especially susceptible to this infestation because ash makes up a staggering 15 percent of the total tree population in the state. In the next few decades it is expected that almost all of these trees will need to be removed and replaced, making it one of Minnesota’s greatest challenges today.

This summer, MISO will turn on the anticipated storage market model switch. It has been a long journey for storage companies and renewable developers to address climate change with battery technology. With so many twists and turns for storage at MISO, it is important that CEEM members not lose heart. CEEM and its members should become active at MISO stakeholder meetings and voice their concerns for additional aggregation market opportunities.

The Finnish Minister of Trade and Development and Finnish Ambassador will visit Minnesota in October and are planning to meet with Governor Walz and other businesses and trade representatives.

Back in the 1990’s all of the solar power installed in Minnesota was known as “off-grid solar,” a thing only interesting to people who owned remote cabins. By necessity, these power systems were self-contained, having energy storage that was optimized for the most run-time that the customer could afford.

When people think about the clean energy economy, what comes to mind? Solar photovoltaic and wind energy are likely at the top of the list. Perhaps other renewable sources of energy like solar heating, ground-source heating and cooling, geothermal power, or hydroelectric. Or non-renewable low carbon technologies like fossil energy with carbon capture or nuclear power. While these are all important, biomass and the bioeconomy are also key contributors to a clean energy economy.

Months into the COVID-19 lockdown last year, positive headlines were few and far between. Among the limited uplifting topics to catch public attention, however, was sustainability. In December 2020, news outlets across the country wrote about data published in the journal “Earth System Science Data” that showed a 7 percent drop from fossil emission levels compared to 2019. That equates to an estimated 2.4 billion tonnes’ difference in CO2 emissions.