Minnesota PUC vice chair calls rate-case filings 'really painful'

Rate-case filings are "really painful" right now, Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Vice Chair Joseph Sullivan told Utility Dive, citing customer bill affordability and eroding trust in public institutions.

Sullivan described a stack of compounding pressures: aging power plants due for replacement, Minnesota's clean energy targets, new large loads and transmission lines arriving in communities that ask why they are needed. The interview took place Monday at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' annual meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

For infrastructure investors, the consequence is timing and allocation: slower filings shift when utility spending earns a return, and data-center treatment decides recovery from all ratepayers. A slower filing calendar delays when that spending enters customer rates, which is the assumption project financing is built on.

Sullivan also said data center cost allocation has become overly complex. On siting, he said transparency has been an issue with some proposals and that the gap is context as much as disclosure. "People oftentimes just don't understand how the system works, and why would they?" he said. Thin disclosure, limited understanding and degraded faith combine into "a really foul mix," he said, and hearings have grown more contentious.

On affordability, he pointed to demand-side management, which he called the state's biggest affordability program. The programs remove millions of megawatt-hours from the system each year, he said; returning them would make the system about 20% larger.

Xcel Energy raised its five-year capital plan 17% to $70 billion, as Private Infrastructure Daily previously reported, with $21.7 billion expected for the renewable build. Its Northern States Power-Minnesota subsidiary is one of the utilities the commission regulates, tying part of that plan's recovery to the timing of Minnesota rate cases.