MPUC Suspends Coop's Distributed Generation Fees Proceeding

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MPUC Suspends Coop's Distributed Generation Fees Proceeding

February 10, 2017

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) today (Feb. 10) suspended until further notice its investigation into the fees charged to qualifying facilities by Cooperative Electric Associations under the 2015 amendments to Minn. Stat. 216.164, Subd. 3.

The terse notice, with no explanation, followed a joint filing made the day before by Fresh Energy and the Minnesota Rural Electric Association. Despite being on opposite sides of the issue, those parties jointly requested the MPUC suspend the comment period on the docket. The one paragraph request noted that the comment deadline was set for Feb. 10. The parties noted that the Legislature “is currently considering changes to the section of the statute under investigation . . .” and requested the suspension in “the interest of efficiency of Commission resources.”

In a separate filing made Feb. 9, the Minnesota Department of Commerce also requested that the Commission suspend comments “until the outcome of the current Legislative Session is clear. The current Legislature is considering bills (S.F. 141/H.F. 234) to terminate Commission oversight of cooperative and municipal utilities, which contemplates terminating any proceedings currently pending before the Commission. The Department requests that the Commission suspend comments in this proceeding at this time, and reissue a notice for comment if needed once the outcome of the pending legislation is known.”

 The suspended MPUC docket is 16-512.  

Editor's note: If searching eDockets on the MPUC website, '16' is the Docket Number Year and 512 is the Docket Number.