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One of the biggest hurdles to bringing clean energy sources online in the U.S. often isn’t a lack of money, necessity or even willpower. It’s red tape.
In some states, simply getting government approvals to build solar or wind projects can take more than a year, and that can come on top of local opposition or federal environmental reviews. Legislation to overhaul the process of issuing permits has been stalled in Congress for years, even as electricity demand is projected to rise and thousands of energy projects are stuck waiting to be connected to the grid.
But Minnesota is trying to fix its own part of this cumbersome process.
Last year, Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill that aims to simplify the state’s permitting process, in large part to help Minnesota reach its goal of having a carbon-free electric grid by 2040.
It has typically taken energy projects in Minnesota 12 to 13 months to be granted site permits, according to Jeremy Duehr, an attorney at Fredrikson & Byron, a law firm that works with companies on the permitting process.
“We had projects that, quite honestly, looking at them, shouldn’t have had to go through the extensive process they did,” Walz, the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, said.
The new law exempts certain projects, like wind and solar facilities and some high-voltage transmission lines, from having to obtain certain state approvals if the projects will help the state meet its 2040 goal.
It also sets up two categories for state review: one for major projects like gas plants and bigger transmission lines, and a faster-moving approval process for wind, solar and battery-storage initiatives.
Two recent projects show the extent of the problem in Minnesota. A solar installation by Xcel Energy took just over a year to be awarded a site permit from the state. A route permit and certificate of need for a 345-kilovolt transmission line proposed by Minnesota Power and Great River Energy was approved early this year, roughly a year and a half after developers applied.
Peder Mewis, regional policy director for the Clean Grid Alliance, an advocacy organization, who worked on Minnesota’s new law, expects it will cut permitting timelines on standard wind and solar projects by six to nine months.
The national problem
Minnesota isn’t the only state trying to make the permitting less cumbersome. In 2023, Washington enacted a law that aims to speed things up, and Colorado last year enacted a law to try and help localities approve utility-scale renewable energy projects.
In Minnesota, some environmental groups backed the new law but others raised concerns. Under the law, new natural gas plants need to conduct a “less rigorous” environmental assessment than what was previously required, according to Sarah Mooradian, government relations and policy director for CURE, a Minnesota nonprofit group that works on climate and energy issues.
Walz maintains that the new law doesn’t cut corners when it comes to the environment.
Still, there’s only so much that states can do. In some parts of the U.S., cities or towns have the power to approve or deny projects. And at the federal level, obtaining some necessary permits can take years.
Where permitting goes from here
Minnesota’s new law won’t go into full effect until this summer, so its overall effect is still unclear. Walz also said he wants funding for the state to add more staff focused on permitting, including an ombudsperson to help developers navigate the process.
His goal is for applicants to be able to track their permits, almost like the way people can track packages being delivered. “I think we owe it to folks to at least get pretty close to showing them that timeline and where their permit is at, so there’s no confusion,” Walz said.
More Climate Fix news:
A small win in the fight to protect nature: “While the Trump administration in Washington was cutting environmental programs, delegates at U.N. biodiversity talks in Rome made modest progress Thursday on a series of measures to support nature,” the Times’ Catrin Einhorn reports.
“The talks unfolded with one country conspicuously absent, the United States,” she writes.
Clean energy growth: Last year, the broad category of clean-energy and transportation investment in the U.S. reached $272 billion, a 16 percent increase over 2023. That’s according to the latest report from the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint project from Rhodium Group, a research firm, and M.IT.’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Investment in electric vehicle supply chains was up 79 percent last year, and battery technology investment was up 91 percent.
Texas’s nuclear ambitions: The state is moving aggressively to develop advanced nuclear reactors, according to Inside Climate News. Texas is the country’s biggest producer and user of energy. Most of the projects are 10 to 20 years away from commercial viability.
China’s worst pollution: China aims to effectively eliminate severe air pollution by the end of next year, a senior environment official told Reuters. China’s “battle for blue skies” will try to cut down on the estimated 2 million deaths from air pollution in the country annually.
Coal’s slow decline: U.S. power generators plan to remove roughly double the amount of coal power capacity that was retired in 2024, according to an Energy Information Administration flagged by Reuters. (Read about why coal has been so hard to quit in the U.S.)
