Renewable Energy’s Challenges & Benefits

Among the five topics the Center for Rural Policy & Development will focus on over the next three years is “The Role of Rural Places and People in a Shifting Energy Infrastructure and the Environment.” For western Minnesotans, this topic comes at a crucial time.
Its other four topics are:
- Remaining Resilient in an Aging Rural Minnesota
- The Future of Rural Access to Well-Being
- Funding Local Government in Changing Times
- How to increase civility among and towards our civil servants and public workers.
“This agenda is designed to better understand and help address pressing challenges and opportunities faced by rural communities across Minnesota,” Julie Tesch, president and CEO of the CRPD, said last week.
“The five themes recommended by staff and selected by CRPD’s Board of Directors reflect the broad array of issues and challenges facing rural communities and build on the important research conducted by the organization over the past two and a half decades,” she said.
“Our work on topics including the childcare crisis, rural EMS and ambulance services, mental health care access, housing, and workforce development has sparked important conversations and inspired real change,” Tesch said.
CRPD’s research informs legislators and local governments, helping them focus their efforts on ways to improve the lives of rural Minnesotans.
In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature passed a law requiring utilities to get 100% of their electricity from carbon-free sources by 2040. Wind and solar energy will play a major role in getting Minnesota to that goal.
In the 2024 legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill streamlining the permitting process for wind and solar projects. Developers complained that the state’s permitting process creates unnecessary and significant delays, frustrating their efforts.
As Minnesota transitions to increased reliance on renewable energy, it is stepping up its efforts to prepare for the impacts related to a warming planet. Rural areas will play a critical role in the expansion of renewable energy resources.
However, our role in this transition is already creating considerable tension as the income from renewable energy projects benefit some landowners and local governments but clashes with the interests of those who would preserve the natural beauty of a rural landscape.
These tensions are being felt in western Minnesota, where a proposed 345-kV powerline from Big Stone City, S.D., to Alexandria is attracting wind and solar projects that will have a transmission source for the power they generate. Current transmission lines don’t have the capacity to add power from new wind and solar sites.
With the 345-kV powerline construction, Stevens and Pope counties could see interest in wind and solar projects. Grant County already has large wind turbines. In Traverse County, Cordelio Power’s efforts to install wind turbines are supported and opposed.
Landowners, some local and some living in other states, are signing leases for wind turbines and solar fields. They will earn the revenue from the companies backing these projects while neighbors will be left with what they say is a blight on the rural landscape.
“We live about 3 miles off of U.S. Highway 59,” Bill Anderson told the Swift County Board of Commissioners at their July 16 meeting. “From our house, we can hear and see vehicles on 59, and when they hit the rumble strips, we can hear them.
“I find it hard to believe these wind towers…are  not going to be hard to see, and you are going to hear them. They are going to ruin the view of the sky. You won’t have a decent view out your front porch anymore. My land value is going to go down if we have a bunch of windmills out there.
“Look out your front door and appreciate what you’ve got instead of looking for windmills,” he said.
Another worry among those whose income is tied to farming the land is that prime ag land will be lost to renewable energy projects. Others worry that native habitats on land that were marginal at best for farming will be covered with solar panels, causing further wildlife loss.
Aerial crop sprayers are concerned about the increasing safety threat of more powerlines.
There are concerns about the decommissioning of wind and solar projects once their useful life has passed. Who pays for decommissioning them, and how quickly will it happen?
Landowners who will benefit from putting wind towers or solar fields on their land see it differently. They say the income counties will earn off these renewable energy projects will reduce the real estate tax burden on farmers. Farmland can account for more than 75% of the taxable property values in some counties. Income from a lease for wind towers or solar arrays will help offset their property tax bills, they add.
Companies like Apex Clean Energy are offering grant programs to build goodwill among the residents of the counties in which they have built or plan to build windmills. Apex has launched its Junegrass Wind’s Community Grant Program for Swift County, where it is planning to construct 40 windmills.
“The program’s goal is to bolster efforts of local organizations addressing community needs, fostering innovation, and driving positive change in Swift County,” the companies stated in a news release Monday. “Grant funds are allocated to applicants in five priority categories: healthy and safe communities, economic opportunity, environmental sustainability, health and recreation, and education.”
Junegrass Wind is the name Apex Clean Energy has given to its western Minnesota wind energy project.
CRPD’s study of renewable energy will look into:
- Rural Minnesota’s role in renewable energy infrastructure.
- What areas of the state are the most promising for renewable energy projects?
- Can the state’s renewable energy goals realistically be achieved?
- To what extent are renewable energy projects being driven by corporations non-local, even non-state, developers?
- What are the benefits to the local economy and local governments of renewable energy projects?
- Adapting to climate change and ensuring environmental well-being.
Publisher’s note: Reed Anfinson serves on the CRPD board.