Northfield weighs climate policy fix ahead of March 3 meeting
With Northfield’s electric grid too congested to accommodate new solar projects, councilors are weighing an interim amendment to the Sustainable Building Policy to allow for city projects to continue
By Maya Betti
Mayor Erica Zweifel speaking with Sustainability Coordinator Sara Pabich after her report to the Council on Feb. 17. | Photo by Maya Betti
For years, Northfield has positioned itself as a climate leader in Minnesota.
According to a November report from the Building Power Resource Center, the city is one of 22 Minnesota city, county, regional and tribal governments that have adopted climate action or resilience plans, and one of three cities that have even more ambitious emission reduction targets than the state. Northfield’s climate action plan calls for the city to achieve carbon neutrality — removing as much carbon from the atmosphere as the city produces — by 2040. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s statewide goal is for the same results by 2050.
Now, however, the city’s ambition is facing a major obstacle: Xcel Energy says the electric grid in and around Northfield is too congested to accept new solar generation for three to five years. That complicates any new developments that would use renewable energy sources — including the city’s new $26.5 million ice arena.
How did the city get here?
The issue surfaced at the Feb. 10 City Council meeting, when City Administrator Ben Martig and Public Works Director and City Engineer David Bennett informed the Council that solar panels planned for the city’s ice arena — already purchased and incorporated into the building’s design — had been denied interconnection during Xcel’s review process.
During the arena’s design phase, city staff relied on an online map of Xcel’s grid. Bennett said the map gave officials the impression that the infrastructure could handle the planned solar system. It could not.
While the purchased panels were returned for credit, and the city’s application remains in the interconnection queue, Martig acknowledged that the setback affected the city’s climate goals and cost savings strategies — a point that brought into question Northfield’s broader climate initiatives.
An image of the Hosting Capacity Map from the Xcel Energy website shows much of Northfield shaded red — the lowest capacity designation — showing limited ability to connect additional solar.
“I don’t think it really hit home for the staff and the Council until what happened with the ice arena, where we realized how serious the grid congestion was,” Mayor Erica Zweifel told KYMN Radio.
Xcel Energy said in a statement to KYMN Radio that there is an “unprecedented demand for electricity” in Minnesota. According to Xcel, allowing more generation to come online under these conditions would risk overloading the electric distribution and transmission systems, increasing safety concerns.
At a Feb. 17 Council meeting, Sustainability Coordinator Sara Papich told the council that the city’s Sustainable Building Policy is “not achievable” under the current grid conditions.
Adopted in 2022, the policy is the city’s main tool for cutting emissions from new construction and major renovations as it works toward its 2040 carbon-free goal. It applies to city-owned projects and to private developments that receive certain forms of city financial assistance, such as Tax Increment Financing (TIF), grants or loans.
Compliance is mandatory.
To meet the policy, projects must achieve certification under an approved sustainable building rating system — such as the state’s B3 Guidelines — and satisfy the Northfield green requirement.
Pabich, who started her position in January, told the council that the policy was structured with the expectation that on-site solar would be a viable way for new developments to meet the city’s climate goals.
With Xcel Energy’s grid effectively closed to new interconnection, that assumption no longer holds.
How does this impact climate goals in Northfield?
Currently, developers in Northfield must meet three core requirements: a predicted greenhouse gas emission calculation, an energy-efficiency benchmark and a renewable energy requirement.
“These Northfield Green requirements — all three of those things — cannot be altered without City Council approval,” Pabich said in an interview. “And so we really start to see some policy tension with the renewable energy requirement.”
That requirement mandates a study to determine whether on-site renewable energy can be installed and whether it is cost effective to do so. But with Xcel Energy’s interconnection timelines stretching years, solar — the most common on-site and affordable option — is effectively off the table.
“That really only leaves geothermal systems as a way for developers to meet this,” Pabich said. “While geothermal systems are actually fairly common… there’s a lot of technical complexity and timeline constraints.”
The result is a narrow path for developers to try to comply with city standards, with local businesses facing similar constraints.
Derek Meyers, owner of Imminent Brewing, said he began exploring solar roughly three years ago and secured a grant that would have covered 25 to 30% of installation costs. The brewery moved forward with plans and applied for interconnection.
Instead, Meyers learned his project was one of about 30 in the Northfield area waiting for approval.
“They basically told us each one of these applications can take up to like 300 days,” Meyers said. “Do the math on that.”
Years later, the brewery is still waiting. Meyers said the delay likely cost the business access to certain tax credits and rebates that have since expired, and earlier cost estimates are no longer reliable.
“We don’t even know what the price to do it would be anymore,” he said. “It’s something we’d like to do. It’s part of what we value as a business. But it’s not an option we can do. We’re just kind of stuck.”
For Zweifel, the grid congestion strikes at the heart of Northfield’s climate strategy.
Buildings are one of the largest contributors to local greenhouse gas emissions, making them central to Northfield’s plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2040.
Without reliable access to solar — the cheapest renewable energy source — Northfield’s path to meeting its climate goals becomes not only more complicated, but more expensive.
Zweifel said she has been told Northfield’s situation is unique.
“I’m told that we’re maybe one of two cities that are in this situation in the entire state,” she said.
If that’s the case, she said the impact goes beyond current delayed projects.
“That puts Northfield at a significant disadvantage to be competitive in terms of energy-efficient buildings and having access to the cheapest renewable source of energy,” Zweifel said.
What’s next?
The City Council will consider an interim amendment to the Sustainable Building Policy at its March 3 meeting.
If approved, the amendment would allow the city’s Sustainability Coordinator, Pabich, to approve different methods for developers to comply with sustainability rules without the Council’s approval. The measure is intended to keep current projects, including the ice arena, moving forward while the grid backlog persists.
“That will probably just make the policy workable in the interim,” Pabich said. “The long-term solution is to sort of rewrite the policy and sort of look at different ways that we can ensure this policy is clear, achievable, locally appropriate, and still advances our Northfield carbon-free 2040 goals.”
Pabich hopes to have a policy written and ready to be applied by Jan. 1, 2027.
Council Member Chad Beumer, who has worked in construction and building, said in an interview with KYMN Radio that keeping the policy unchanged could make Northfield less competitive for development.
“They’re [developers] coming to us seeking assistance, and then we tag this policy on there, which, at the end of the day, makes them spend more money,” Beumer said.
Beumer acknowledged that loosening the requirements could slow progress toward the city’s 2040 carbon-free goal, but he also questioned maintaining standards that cannot realistically be met under current grid constraints, instead pushing for a moratorium — a temporary pause — until the policy “can be worked out.”
Zweifel framed the situation as a broader dilemma for the city, weighing upfront costs against the fact that buildings will continue to consume increasing amounts of energy to heat and cool.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about the upfront cost of building a sustainable building,” she said. “You have to compare that with the lifecycle costs of the building and how much energy and money is being saved in the long-term cost of that building.”
Zweifel also sees the constraint as a potential opportunity to improve what the city didn’t know when the policy was first drafted, such as the rapid drop in solar costs and the strain that success has placed on the grid.
“I’m still just really thinking a lot about all the things right now and waiting to hear what the staff are bringing,” she said. “I listen and I try to find that path forward that gets us as close to both of those goals in terms of moving projects forward in Northfield, while also holding on to those really important climate goals.”
Northfield now faces a choice: adapt its climate strategy to a grid-constrained reality or risk stalling development while waiting for solar access to catch up.
Maya Betti is a KYMN News intern and an Executive Editor of the St. Olaf Messenger. Contact her at news@kymnradio.net
