Minnesota utilities expect billions from Biden’s clean energy law. Its future under Trump is uncertain.

President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to cut off money from President Joe Biden’s massive climate law would upend the plans of Minnesota’s energy industry, which is expecting billions in federal subsidies to help it meet a state deadline for a carbon-free electric grid.

In the two years since a Democrat-controlled Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, it has become a fixture in the energy landscape for developers, power companies in big cities and small nonprofit cooperatives in rural areas.

Those utilities have penciled in billions in benefits for new infrastructure over more than a decade that will save customers money. Xcel Energy alone is banking on $5.7 billion by 2040 in Minnesota and the Dakotas.

“If they take the money back, there will be specific communities that feel pain,” said Darrick Moe, CEO of the Minnesota Rural Electric Association.

In September, Trump said the IRA “sets us back as opposed to moves us forward,” adding he would “rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”

Despite the Republican control of Congress and the White House, it’s not clear if the GOP has enough votes to fully repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. A handful of Republicans have asked to keep at least some of the IRA intact.

The debate will test the influence of utilities and private developers who are pitching lawmakers on the economic benefits of the plan, especially in Republican-led areas.

The IRA includes about $369 billion in energy and climate spending, funding a sprawling set of programs that includes clean electricity tax credits, clean fuel and vehicle credits, and grants and loans for things like building efficiency and transmission lines. (Some estimates place the eventual cost at more than $1 trillion.)

There’s also money for home energy rebates to encourage rooftop solar arrays, electric heat pumps and other green technology.

A chunk of that money has been spent, but much of it remains. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to stop any unspent cash, potentially booking it to help pay for other priorities, as part of a renewed emphasis on fossil fuels.

Still, state law requires carbon-free power generation in Minnesota by 2040. Many utilities are baking IRA money into their future plans to meet climate goals.

Xcel Energy is planning roughly $13 billion in spending before 2030 in Minnesota and the Dakotas.

The company wants to build new wind and solar power, roll out major battery projects, keep its old nuclear plants running and open at least one new gas plant. It also wants to build new power lines and upgrade existing infrastructure. That will help it comply with the 2040 law, keep the lights on, and also meet growing demand for power driven largely by data centers and electric vehicles.

Xcel spokesman Theo Keith said the company uses IRA credits and grants to lower electricity rates for customers and is working to “educate lawmakers on the many positive impacts for their constituents.”

On Nov. 1, Xcel asked state regulators to raise electric bills. But at the same time, the company said it now expects to save hundreds of millions for customers through credits for nuclear power.

“Projects we build using the tax credits and grants have significant community benefits, including job creation, increased property taxes, and payments to local landowners,” Keith said.

Moe’s rural electric group represents nonprofit cooperative electric utilities in the state.

In September, the Biden administration announced a $579 million grant for Dairyland Power Cooperative to build eight solar and wind installations. The utility mainly serves customers across western Wisconsin but its territory includes a chunk of southeastern Minnesota.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Dairyland electric rates will be 42% lower over 10 years than they would be without the grant.

Maple Grove-based Great River Energy, which supplies power to roughly 1.7 million people through cooperatives, applied for nearly $1 billion through the same program. Great River was selected as a finalist and is negotiating with the feds over a final award. Ramsey-based Connexus Energy is also a finalist.

“That stuff is pretty exciting and definitely in the group of things that we’re concerned a new Congress, the new administration, could go after in order to try free up money for other priorities,” Moe said.

Cooperatives also get direct payments for renewable development.

Some electric utilities are waiting to comment on how the new powers in Washington will change the electric sector. Great River and Fergus Falls-based Otter Tail Power declined to comment. Duluth-based Minnesota Power said it was too early to speculate on Trump’s plans, but spokeswoman Amy Rutledge noted that IRA legislation is important to its wind and solar projects.

Republicans may not have enough votes in the narrowly divided House to ax the clean energy law, at least entirely.

In August, 18 House Republicans signed a letter saying that credits, especially those used to justify projects that already broke ground, have spurred innovation and created jobs and investment.

Many of those legislators represent closely divided swing districts, and some lost their re-election bids. None of Minnesota’s four Republican U.S. House members, all representing districts safely in GOP hands, signed the letter. None responded to a request for comment.

Several analyses of the IRA found Republican-dominated states and congressional districts have claimed the most cash. Minnesota has not landed vehicle battery plants like other states, but the vast majority of renewable power planned in the state would come outside of Democrat-voting urban centers like the Twin Cities metro.

Xcel is building one of the country’s largest solar farms at the site of its soon-retiring coal plant in Becker, which is in GOP U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer’s district. The company expects to get IRA tax credits for the solar production.

An October analysis by the Washington Post found that GOP U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach’s district has $423 million in investments related to the IRA, the most in Minnesota.

It will be up to the power industry to demonstrate the jobs and other benefits of the IRA and renewable development in general to voters, said Beth Soholt, executive director of Clean Grid Alliance, a St. Paul-based nonprofit representing wind, solar, battery and transmission developers.

“If you look at the election results and the analysis, a lot of it is like ‘people didn’t really see what the Biden administration was doing for their pocketbook and they didn’t see it in their day to day lives,’” Soholt said. “So how can you have more visibility that new taxes are coming into their community coffers and they’re getting spent on things that matter in their lives.”

Outside of the IRA, there could be room for common ground between Trump and Minnesota’s electric sector.

Xcel spokesman Keith said the company hopes to work with Trump on his priorities, including changes to permitting law that could help the company build projects faster.

The American Clean Power Association said in a statement that its industry grew by double digits each year under the first Trump administration.

National trade groups for investor-owned utilities and rural cooperatives that include Minnesota’s power providers have also sued Biden over environmental rules that restrict emissions from coal and gas plants.

Trump has promised to alter the energy landscape in other ways, such as nixing policies meant to encourage electric vehicles or increase oil and gas production across the country. Minnesota doesn’t produce fossil fuels.

Soholt said Trump can likely only affect the shift to carbon-free power “around the edges,” such as by potentially slowing the work of environmental regulators by sparking a mass exodus of employees.

She also said state legislatures in the Midwest might push harder to keep fossil fuel plants open, especially with some energy experts warning of short supply as coal plants retire and energy demand rises.

Still, Soholt said, “big picture, we think that the horse is out of the barn.”

“The clean energy transition is happening whether Trump likes it or not,” she said.