Minnesota Regulators Back Prairie’s Edge Casino in ‘Outrageous’ Power Cut Threat

• State regulators back tribe in solar power showdown.
• Casino solar array triggers utility shutdown threat.
• Regulator warns co-op may lose service rights entirely.
  

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 A Minnesota utility company’s threat to pull the plug on the Prairie’s Edge Casino Resort if its owner, the Upper Sioux Community, activates a new solar panel system has been slammed by state regulators.

The Minnesota Valley Cooperative Light and Power Association, a small utility that serves western parts the state, says the tribe’s solar array, at 2.5 megawatts, vastly exceeds the 40-kilowatt limit Minnesota Valley allows. It has threatened to cut off power to the casino if it turns the system on.

But the Upper Sioux say the system won’t feed electricity back into the grid, it will only serve the casino, meaning the utility’s rules shouldn’t apply, The Minnesota Star Tribune reports.

Tribe Asserts Energy Rights

The tribe had the multimillion-dollar solar array built to lower electricity bills and promote clean energy, and they believe it will supply around 30% of the casino’s power needs.

Minnesota Valley is a rural electric cooperative – a nonprofit utility owned by its members, typically serving areas that larger, for-profit energy companies don’t.

It brought its complaint to the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which at a July 24 hearing sided unanimously with the tribe. Commissioners even threatened to take away the co-op’s right to serve the Upper Sioux altogether, possibly replacing it with a larger provider such as Xcel Energy.

Regulators Push Back

Several commissioners pointed out that cutting power to a public facility, even a casino, could endanger people who rely on air conditioning or medical devices. Commissioner Joe Sullivan called the utility’s move “outrageous.”

Another, Audrey Partridge, said the co-op had “lost [its] tether to the purpose of an electric utility, adding that it was “its privilege to serve” its members, rather than “be adversarial and unreasonable to them,” as reported by the Star Tribune.

Republican commissioner John Tuma asked whether Minnesota Valley felt it “had a patent on electricity.”

That’s what it sounds like … and if these guys go ahead and produce some electricity behind the scenes, they can’t do it unless they come and ask your blessing to use it?” he asked. “No, you have a duty to serve.”

The PUC voted 4-0 to investigate the matter and asked the state’s legal team to take steps to prevent the co-op from shutting off electricity while the issue is reviewed.