Minnesota Policy
Minnesota Community Solar Program
Minnesota has a history as being one of the first states to implement a community solar program. Recently, Minnesota also formalized its commitment to 100% clean energy by 2040. The state recently revamped its community solar program to increase eligible project size from 1MW to 5MW and include a focus on benefitting low-moderate ratepayers and community benefit organizations. The new community solar program offers annual capacity caps of 100MW in 2024, 2025, and 2026, 80MW in 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030, and 60MW each year thereafter. Eligibility is limited to Xcel Energy’s electric service territory.
Update - December 2024: As of mid-December 2024, 67.6MW of capacity had been claimed of the 100MW state community solar program capacity allocated for 2024. Unused MW do not rollover into subsequent years, so any unused MW after the December submission block closes will not shift to 2025. On January 1, the state's community solar program will re-set with a new batch of 100MW of available capacity for program year 2025. This capacity is still limited to projects within Xcel's service territory. The program administrator, the Department of Commerce, may explore a new project application submission process, considering the monthly block submission process saw relatively low activity as 2024 progressed.
