Over the last year the Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has been lobbying its power supplier, Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (SMMPA) to take a more proactive stance on climate change.
SMMPA provides electricity for 18 communities, the vast majority of which are located in southern Minnesota.
While agreeing that SMMPA has made some steps to address its carbon footprint, George Wilkes, a PUC board member said, “Grand Marais PUC has a profound disagreement with SMMPA over how SMMPA is engaging with the issue of climate change.
“SMMPA has chosen to take no position on climate change, and has no process in place to acknowledge or address the climate crisis of which they are partly responsible through their generation of coal-fired electricity. There is no mention of ‘Climate Change’ or ‘Global warming’ on the SMMPA website.
“How can we successfully address a problem (climate change) when we refuse to acknowledge its existence and have no process in place to assess various solutions? SMMPA is in denial about climate change, which is perpetuating a lack of understanding about the climate change crisis within the organization and within its member communities, and that denial is a significant obstacle to achieving effective and realistic solutions,” said Wilkes.
But hold on, says Chris Schoenerr, SMMPA publicity spokesperson.
“Minnesota has established a greenhouse gas reduction goal for entities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2015, 30 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050 when compared against 2005 emissions. SMMPA is pleased to report it has achieved this goal for the year 2015 and is forecasted to achieve the 2025 reduction goal as well,” Schoenerr said.
Added Schoenerr, “We’re serious about energy efficiency— but also beginning to think that maybe using more electricity to do things like heat homes, heat water and most important, provide transportation may be a way to move the ball forward. I’m not a transportation expert but I suspect there is only so much more one can do to increase vehicle fuel efficiency – particularly if folks are leaning towards larger vehicles. Clearly there is more that we can, and will do, on the electricity front to transition the fleet over time to continue to decrease carbon emissions and by picking up some additional uses, improve the carbon footprint economy-wide.”
SMMPA steps
Steps taken by SMMPA to encourage its customers to use “green” energy include setting up an Energy Efficiency Program, where rebates are given for energy star appliances and lighting upgrades. SMMPA is also engaged in discussions about building a 3 megawatt community solar program, of which Grand Marais PUC customers will be able to subscribe to about 50kW (about 150 panels) later this year if the project goes through.
And, SMMPA has also agreed to facilitate the installation of 50 kW solar panels on the new Public Works garage for the City of Grand Marais.
City council passes resolution of support
On January 11, 2017 Grand Marais City Council unanimously passed a resolution recognizing climate change as being “perilous to the earth’s natural systems and human civilization.”
In April 2017, Grand Marais PUC sent a letter to SMMPA outlining concerns it had with SMMPA’s engagement on the issue of climate change.
On November 2, 2017, Grand Marais PUC sent a second letter to the SMMPA board and member representatives.
Part of that letter is as follows: “Our mission statement states that we will provide power in ‘an environmentally responsible manner’ and yet, 97 percent of climate scientists say that, based on the evidence, human caused global warming is happening and is creating increasing global environmental (and humanitarian) harm. We are in a hypocritical situation. Given the grave humanitarian consequences of such global warming, and the obvious long-term threat to our member communities, it is no longer acceptable o remain largely unengaged on this issue.”
When asked why SMMPA doesn’t use the term “climate change” or “global warming” in any of its literature, Schoenerr explained those are political terms that “create a lot of passion on both sides. We are not trying to get hung up on that.” He also said within the power generating industry those terms aren’t used because they aren’t part of the lexicon.
PUC to meet with SMMPA officials
On February 7 at 3 p.m. at City Hall the Grand Marais PUC board will meet with Dave Geschwind, SMMPA CEO, and Mark Fritsch, SMMPA board president.
The SMMPA delegation is going to be in attendance for the purpose of explaining SMMPA’s position on climate change in relation to Grand Marais PUC’s request.
“We are happy to meet with our community customers who want to explore ways to purchase power that has a lower carbon footprint,” Schoenerr said. “But people have to understand that comes with an added cost.”
For the upcoming year, SMMPA will develop a concise summary of its CO2 emission reduction activities and share that information with its utility members and to interested parties. In addition, annually at a board meeting (likely April each year), the SMMPA board and the members will discuss sustainability and progress towards the state’s CO2 reduction goals.
To respond to Grand Marais’ interest in lower-carbon power supply, SMMPA staff will work with the city to determine if there is interest in a renewable energy contracts for-differences up to the amount of the Grand Marais electrical load not already served from SMMPA’s renewable energy portfolio.
Schoenerr explained that the company will continue to work to reduce its carbon footprint while maintaining a balance between providing reliable power, maintaining safety, addressing ecological concerns, and keeping electricity cost to its customers as low as possible.
“We think we do a pretty good job. There are positive ways to look at what we do for any number of reasons. We’ll let individuals decide what they are,” Schoenerr said.
As for the Grand Marais PUC, Wilkes said “We are calling on our fellow members within SMMPA to explicitly acknowledge the obvious; that human caused climate change is real; that we (SMMPA) are contributing to it by burning coal; and that climate change is a threat to the future health and safety of our communities. That clears the way for the creation of an inclusive process, bringing in all stakeholders, to properly assess the costs and benefits of climate change solutions. Solving climate change is good for everybody.”
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