In 2004 the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC or Commission) approved a set of interconnection standards in PUC Docket 16-521. In 2016 the Commission reexamined the old Interconnection Standards, and established new ones based on the Standard Generation Interconnection & Procedures (SGIP), which were dissembled by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Throughout the process MnSEIA advocated for the solar industry's position on interconnection standards, which are Phase I of the process, and the Technical Standards in Phase II of the effort. Our work and insight helped Commission staff develop a new set of standards, now titled the Minnesota Distributed Energy Resources Interconnection Process (MN DIP). We continued to help craft those standards through notice and comment periods as they were implemented in June of 2019.
Suggestions to improve the MN DIP continued to be discussed at the Distributed Generation Working Group (DGWG) through 2020 and 2021, as the interconnection standards are a “living document.” In the late Summer and Fall of 2021, MnSEIA and other groups submitted comments in the 16-521 docket that would improve the interconnection process. At the January 20, 2022 Agenda Meeting of the Minnesota PUC, the Commission heard oral arguments from stakeholders. The resulting Order should, over the course of 2022, improve the interconnection process in several important ways.
As the Commission moves toward Phase III of the MN DIP process, which will determine the Distributed Generation tariff, MnSEIA will advocate policies that produce scalable, broadly implementable processes that value distributed generation appropriately.
Learn more about MnSEIA's regulatory work here.
