New Resource: How to Takeover Your Private Electric Utility

We are pleased to introduce the Public Power Handbook, a new resource for advocates and community members who are seeking to bring their private electric utility to public ownership.

Public power, or an equivalent transformative reclaiming of control over energy systems, can yield substantial benefits including reduced rates, increased resilience and an accelerated rate of climate action.

This handbook, co-authored by Community Power board president John Farrell and others from the Institute for Local Self Reliance, features step-by-step guidance on how to municipalize (do a public takeover) of an incumbent corporate-owned utility. 

Please feel free to share far and wide!

Here are 3 of the takeaways from the report: 

1. Communities who are seeking to take back control of their energy system need to connect with other public power advocates from around the country to learn stories on how to build a winning coalition and find a winning message.
2. Local empowerment efforts also need to know what to expect and have the legal and political savvy to overcome the predictable utility pushback. The monopoly utilities, in fact, have their own handbook of dirty but predictable tactics to use to fight public power campaigns, authored by the Edison Electric Institute. 
3. There are alternatives to full municipalization which still further the goals of local energy control and utility accountability. Even public power campaigns that don’t succeed in their original form can make utilities improve their service and accountability. The 2013 effort in Minneapolis (which Community Power emerged from) and the 10-year effort in Boulder Colorado which inspired us, led directly to leveraging the city’s utility franchise negotiations to get climate concessions. It can also lead to alternative models for public power Community Choice Aggregation, Performance-Based Regulation, or Sustainable Energy Utilities such as the one voters in Ann Arbor, Michigan created that supplemented the incumbent utility’s grid with local, reliable, clean energy at below-market rates.

More examples are shared in the blogpost “Utility Franchise Negotiations, Municipal Power Efforts and Revenue-Raising Tools for Climate Action Nationwide.” https://www.communitypowermn.org/examples_of_utility_franchise_negotiations_municipal_power_efforts_and_revenue_raising_tools_for_climate_action_nationwide 

This report is timely in light of a few key headlines 

The town of Slayton in southwest Minnesota is looking to break away from Xcel.

This tiny town wants to be the first in Minnesota to evict Xcel Energy and start its own utility

• A four-hour wait to shut off power to a burning utility pole was one of the last straws for Slayton.
• By Walker Orenstein, The Minnesota Star Tribune. August 8, 2025

The article indicates that there may well be many municipalities in this area with an abundance of wind power development that might be open to learning how they can significantly improve energy management for their community. 

Stay tuned: John Farrell interviewed Slayton's mayor about the decision, and it will be featured on his Local Energy Rules podcast sometime in the next month.

A few lessons we learned when Minneapolis made its attempt to go for public power: 

• • When the Minneapolis City Council held a public hearing to consider forming a green municipal energy utility, Xcel gave their employees the option to take a paid day off to go and speak. 
  • In the weeks leading up to the hearing a unity between various Chambers of Commerce and the Downtown Council emerged in opposition, though with organized labor divided. Some unions like the Service Employees International Union Local 26, speaking in favor of Minneapolis Energy Options.
  • Because an energy monopoly, by definition, has the resources to be broadly influential, many who work in the energy policy field shied away from publicly vocalizing support for having the initiative on the ballot despite being personally supportive. 

What to expect in similar future campaigns: 

#1 - Opposition messages playing into a general fear of uncertainty and change. When the utilities are required by law to bankroll some very well-meaning energy saving programs or offer things like solar rebates, it helps reinforce appeals to the status quo. 

#2 – Opposition messages emphasizing and exaggerating the cost of the municipalization process, though the purpose of ballot initiative effort is to uncover the numbers on what the price tag will actually be. 

#3-  Opposition messages stating a lack of trust in the integrity or competence of the City Government to provide this public service (when the city already does good work with its own water utility).