NOTE: The Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership has had a website but it has been malfunctioning for over a year (https://mplscleanenergypartnership.org/). Since it has compiled the Partnership's mission, work plans, meeting dates, notes, and reports, we are offering some of that info here. 

The Clean Energy Partnership’s stated work in  most Recent Annual Report, is summed up under 3 different themes:  

• Theme 1: Decarbonize Homes via Electrification & Energy Efficiency Retrofits
  • Includes their Home Electrification Guide
• Theme 2: Equitably Accelerate In-Boundary Solar in Support of the City’s Goal of 30% Distributed Solar by 2030
  • Includes the Resilient Minneapolis Project
  • The city had an In-Boundary Solar Task Force with Xcel but it has not met for a while.
• Theme 3: Impactful Reductions in Commercial and Industrial Building Gas Use
  • The New Normal Campaign
  • Large Industrial
  • Decarbonization Roadmap with Hennepin County 

The Structure of the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership 

Officials from the City, Xcel, & CenterPoint hold public meetings 4x per year. It also includes a 15-member "Energy Vision Advisory Committee" of Minneapolis residents, thanks to calls from community members for this oversight when the Partnership was begun. 

The Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership is structured into 3 main components (see 

1) THE BOARD of the Clean Energy Partnership Board consists of 2 representatives from Xcel, 2 Representatives from CenterPoint and 4 board members from the City of Minneapolis. At the current time, 3 elected officials, City Council Members Katie Cashman (Ward 7), Aisha Chughtai (Ward 10), and Mayor Jacob Frey along with the City Operations Manager serve on the Partnership board. 

2) THE STAFF TEAM consists of employees from each of the three organizations who are specifically tasked with working on the Partnership. The Partnership does not have its own independent staff. 

3) THE ENERGY VISION ADVISORY COMMITTEE consists of 15 appointed energy experts and key stakeholder representatives from the Community who provide a vehicle for outside input into the Clean Energy Partnership. 

Background and History: 

This is the "first-in-the-nation" partnership between two for-profit utility companies and a local city government, and a top reason Mayor Betsy Hodges was invited to meet the Pope in 2015. 

The intention behind creating the Partnership was that CenterPoint, Xcel and the City of Minneapolis would be able to accomplish more when working together in an ongoing collaborative space than if they were only talking with each other on an ad hoc basis. 

Xcel and CenterPoint willingly and gladly signed on to this Clean Energy Partnership because it was an alternative to the City considering or pursuing the formation of a green municipal energy utility. The city council held a public hearing on municipalization in 2013 which proved successful in scaring the utilities into listening to the city in helping meet its climate action plan goals because a public takeover would have undercut their market share. This partnership was launched in 2015 as the main recommendation from the 2014 Energy Pathways Study, which also evaluated a more status quo pathways of an enhanced franchise agreement. 

If Xcel and/or CenterPoint refuse to make and act on clear commitments toward a shared and adequate-to-meet-the-need work plan, the City Council could revisit the other energy options identified in the 2014 Minneapolis Energy Pathways Study, which include community-choice aggregation and energy municipalization. 

How has the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership performed and what is it working on?  

The Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership staff have devoted a great deal of its staff time to reviewing and quantifying its own progress toward meeting the City’s ambitious climate & energy goals. Their reports have set some clear timelines and metrics for necessary course adjustment. The Clean Energy Partnership has thus far released numerous biannual work plans and has established a system of metrics for measuring its own success.

The continued evaluation of the Clean Energy Partnership will be in consultation with the Energy Vision Advisory Committee and the community engagement teams and will continue to provide clear definitions to the utilities on what needs to change in the Partnership. 

Our work as Community Power is to hold the Partnership accountable to its promises through our participation in the Energy Vision Advisory Committee and intervention at the Public Utilities Commission & State Legislature.

Here is the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership’s and the Jan 9th presentation to the city council on it as well as the presentation from EVAC.

• • The big takeaway from the Partnership’s 2023 annual report (it’s latest one to date) is a graphic on page 2 on how we are not on track to meet 5 out of 7 of its goals. The only ones that are on track to be met are the 2 involving municipal operations   
  • There are slideshows from the Q4 MPLS CEP board meeting and the Q3 MPLS CEP board meeting. 
• Podcast Episode "Evaluating the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership, Five Years In" -  marking the 5th anniversary of the Partnership in 2019 (Local Energy Rules by Institute for Local Self-Reliance)

Overall, the Partnership has shown mixed results on delivering substantial and meaningful change in Minneapolis energy services of the magnitude needed to get the city on track in meeting its necessarily ambitious energy and climate goals. For example, in 2016, after EVAC successfully developed a community engagement strategy, officials from Xcel and CenterPoint did not actually follow it while doing the energy efficiency pilot project.