Preparing Midwestern Communities for Power Plant Closures
The MGA, led by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will lead an initiative to prepare Midwest communities for power plant closures. This issue is a focal point of Governor Walz’s MGA Chair’s agenda – “Empowering Midwestern Communities” – which will focus on bringing Midwestern policy leaders together to create economic opportunities in the energy sector.
As we undergo a national energy transition, the Midwest has experienced and will continue to experience numerous power plant closures. These power plants are often the largest employers and taxpayers in their cities, and the planned closures could have a significant impact on the community and its workforce. Through the MGA, we plan to harness the collective wisdom, ideas, and lessons learned from state and local government, industry, workers, the advocacy community, and economic development interests to develop solutions to assist these communities and support workers through the transition.
Participants will be charged with scoping out the problem of closures, developing solutions to the problems, and developing plans to support these effected communities and their workforce. Since these generation facilities are often the communities’ largest employer, the loss to the community is large in terms of jobs, but also ancillary businesses. This initiative will investigate how to redevelop these facilities and create employment opportunities for workers in the community. By bringing together utilities, community leaders, workers, and energy advocates, we can better understand the impact these closures will have on communities and workers and how we can plan for a just, beneficial transition and a successful future.
To do so, we intend to host public, all-hands style meetings to have bigger picture discussions quarterly, as well as subgroups, to take deeper dives on main policy areas that can inform this dialogue. The MGA has also partnered with the Just Transition Fund to provide technical guidance and facilitation assistance as experts in this field.
Sponsors
Quarterly Full Group Meetings
Virtual Quarterly Meeting
July 28, 2021
Virtual Quarterly Meeting
April 27, 2021
Virtual Quarterly Meeting
January 13, 2021
Final Recommendations
Thank you for participating at the MGA’s Preparing Midwestern Communities for Power Plant Closures effort this year. As we finalize the recommendations document, which can be found below, please complete the below survey to provide feedback.
Subgroups
Subgroups provide an opportunity for a deeper investigation of major themes and issues that will provide information and best practices for communities impacted by power plant closures.
Subgroup meetings are scheduled monthly, in-between quarterly full group meetings. Each subgroup is listed below with meeting dates, time, and single link to register for the subgroup meeting series.
Local Community Impacts
Economic Development
Workforce & Education
Energy & Environment
Joint Subgroup Call – September 22, 2021 at 9 am Central
Registration Link
Have Resources to Share, Questions or Comments?
Part of this effort is to create a collections of resources to help those working with the energy transition.
If you’d like to share, please complete this form. Thanks!
Resources for Subgroups
This section will be a repository for resources that will provide you with additional information on transition issues. This is a living section and will be updated as more resources are added.
Securitization
- A Webinar: Securitization: A Finance Tool for Energy Transition
- Can a 1990s strategy help states quit coal?
- Utility Tariff Bonds New and Refined Applications for Proven Stranded Cost Securitization Technology
- Utility Tariff Bonds for Coal Plant Retirements in New Mexico and Possibly Colorado. Coming to Your State Soon?
- Utility tariff bonds for coal and other electrical generating plant retirements in Montana?
- Closing the Skills Gap for Coal Mine Workers – Webinar Slides from Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University
- Understanding the Skill Gap and Employment Needs of Displaced CoalFired Power Plant Workers from Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University
- Philadelphia Federal Reserve – Occupational Mobility Explorer Tool
- Career One Stop – Compare Occupations Tool
- Open Skills Network
- Xcel Energy – Minnesota Utility Economic Impact Study
- Minnesota Power – Economic Impact Study
- How to Retire Early: Making Accelerated Coal Phaseout Feasible and Just
- 2019 National Tribal Energy Summit Connects Tribes with Solutions Toward Energy Sovereignty
- National Tribal Leadership Climate Change Summit
- Soot to Solar- Illinois’ Clean Energy Transition
- What’s a Coal State to Do?
- How the MPCA approaches its push toward environmental justice