by Brad Dolinski CEO
Good afternoon Member-Owners of North Itasca!
I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I caught myself yelling at a maple tree yesterday on my way home. There was one branch hanging toward Highway 38 that was bright ruby red. It’s too early to start thinking about fall let alone winter. I’m crossing my fingers we have a nice, long fall this year. Time to get out and enjoy the beauty of the seasons and the last deep breath before ol’ man winter comes back to town.
Our Board and I just got back from the Energy Issues Summit. This is one of my favorite meetings of the year. The content is always outstanding, and we are represented by almost every electrical cooperative across Minnesota. This meeting is named perfectly, we talk about and learn about energy issues we are facing or will be facing soon. Minnesota Rural Electric Association arranges the content and presentations for us, and they do a great job.
Going to this meeting feels like you are at the base of a mountain, and you know the difficult days climbing are ahead of you. On the other hand, I was at a table filled with our directors, the large conference room was full of directors, CEOs, and staff from across Minnesota. We are not alone; we will climb this mountain together with the other 44 electric cooperatives from Minnesota.
We heard from energy professionals across industries while we were at the conference. Energy & Environmental Research Center’s Chief Research Officer was there to tell us about the exciting work happening in North Dakota. These are the folks looking for the next big thing. They are looking to make huge leaps in energy while improving the environment. They work with and for all of us in the energy industry and are very close to home in Grand Forks.
We got a splash of legal advice from Pemberton Law. When laws change at the Capitol, how does an employer get to the bottom of what needs to change? Thankfully we have the Energy Issues Summit and MREA. They help me to sort through the pile of information regarding employment law. Reading bills and eventually laws that are passed yearly can be daunting. Understanding the language of the bills can be right on the brink of frustrating. Pemberton is one of the firms that help to sort through the legal language; they deliver presentations to our group a couple times a year depending on changes at the Capitol. I’ve seen them quite a bit in the past two years.
One large point of discussion centered around Net Metering. Net metering is used when Member-Owners have a generating system like wind or solar and sell energy back to the cooperative.
Net metering in Minnesota has been around for forty years. Minnesota was the first state to adopt net metering. Many things have changed in the past forty years. We need to look to improve and modernize the net metering laws at the Capitol. Without changes there is a cross subsidy that happens between those who invest in solar projects and those who have not. If our entire system is mandated to be 100% carbon free by 2040, we should not be paying more for one kilowatt vs another. We need to address the subsidy, so all members are treated equally.
These were just the subjects that happened before lunch on the first day. We were in meetings learning together and sharing our experiences for three days. Politics is always a big discussion during this meeting. We hear from political analysis experts, what they expect to see for energy policy and how the numbers suggest elections will turn out. I’m a firm believer, it’s anyone’s guess how elections will land. No matter how they end up, we look forward to getting to know our new Representatives on all sides of the aisle. Electrical Cooperatives were born in politics, we remain a voice for safe, reliable, affordable power for the Member-Owners we serve back home.
By your side! Miigwech
Brad
