Hennepin County is engaged in a tug-of-war with Xcel Energy Inc. over who gets to keep renewable energy credits generated by the county's garbage burner.
Those credits might not be especially lucrative now, but they're expected to become increasingly valuable as state and federal governments require utilities to provide more energy from renewable sources in the years ahead.
On Tuesday, the Hennepin County Board Energy and Environment Committee extended the county's contract with a Minneapolis law firm to handle its case against Xcel before the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
As renewable energy standards rise in coming years, selling the energy credits could bring Hennepin County up to $1 million annually, Commissioner Peter McLaughlin said.
"This is serious money," he said, especially if cap-and-trade programs to buy and sell emissions permits take hold.
Minnesota requires that by the end of this year, 15 percent of the energy Xcel provides must be from renewable sources such as solar, biomass or wind. That mandate grows to 25 percent by 2016 and 30 percent by 2020.
Xcel argues that it should be able to keep renewable credits associated with energy it buys from the county's garbage burner. The credits, issued by the government to a utility, essentially certify that a specific amount of electricity came from a renewable source. Buying a credit is said to be the same as buying renewable energy.
"We just believe that if we're buying renewable energy, it's appropriate to count that toward the renewable energy standards the state has established," said Jim Alders, Xcel's director of regulatory administration.
