Regulatory
There are several state agencies with oversight over utilities' operations, capital investments, and environmental impacts. MUTUAL tracks regulatory changes at the agency level, and members are often informed of new or amended regulations through stories in The Resource and The Digest.
As these notices emerge, they will also be logged on this web page. Check back on this page periodically to stay current on emerging trends in regulation. We also encourage you to monitor the state and federal reporting requirements by downloading the reporting requirements calendar which tracks the requirements and their deadlines. The calendar can be found in the Industry Library.
Most utilities used to pay annual fees to railroads for permission to have their conduit, wires or pipes intersect with the railroad’s tracks. In 2016, Minnesota enacted a law allowing utilities to stop paying annual fees for existing utility crossings and pay only a limited one-time fee for future installations in railroad rights-of-way while meeting certain limited requirements. Municipal utilities can benefit from knowing those requirements and what the indexed fee is currently.
To access resources related to regulatory issues, please visit our Industry Library.
Painful as it is to withhold service for non-payment, utilities must be intimately familiar with the state law requirements governing residential service disconnections during the period between October 1 and April 30 as well as state protections for medically necessary equipment users and bill payment options.
To access resources related to regulatory issues, please visit our Industry Library.
Minnesota policy incentives the interconnection of non-utility renewable electric generation and energy storage to electric utility distribution systems statewide. Accommodating this integration is a key step in the energy industry transformation currently underway. Each utility must have in place rules, a tariff, a step-by-step process, and a technical manual to govern the interconnection of these distributed energy resources (DECs).
To access resources related to regulatory issues, please visit our Industry Library.