March 25, 2026
📝 MPLS MGU Kick-off meeting at Seward Co-Op Friendship Store
Meeting notes
Is this Twin Cities wide? There is a St. Paul team tackling geothermal too but not sure to what extent. Anna met with one of those folks last week, sounds like they’re in the initial stages. Concern about doing double work and turning into 2 mediocre research efforts instead of one coherent effort
Connect with St. Paul team to understand what they are working on
Unidos has done geothermal research previously, this effort is specifically around developing a utility in Minneapolis. But wondering what have we done before and why has it stopped or transformed?
Requirement for Centerpoint to do pilot projects for geothermal networks, Anna working on spreading awareness for potential spots (Rise up center)
Work has been ongoing but the municipal utility idea is newer and based on Ann Arbor, Boise, Massachusetts…
There is interest and momentum from the city that we want to capitalize on, but need to figure out who from the city is interested; CM Stevenson.. And want to connect with these champions to show them how successful geothermal energy is especially around the concept of creating a utility
Reviewing of what’s been done so far
Powermap
Ann Arbor research visit
Reviewing goal together
Build power to primarily push the city council to study 2-3 pathways to establishing a municipal thermal utility; and secondarily, broadly support thermal energy network development in Minneapolis.
Who will do the study?
Build power has a lot in there, should expand on what that means
Wording and structuring so it feels more expansive
Educating and enrolling and a really populous consumer movement of demand
Maybe expand higher than the city, even though we might not be going statewide the city might say its not impactful enough and power could be the people in the state legislator or the outer rings who could say yeah we’re not here yet but we’re really interested in seeing how it goes and building power with neighboring communities and governments
Example: State legislators saying they’re interested in doing this in other areas or hearing from other areas that they’re interested then our city council would feel motivated to jump on it
There are a few bills going through state legislator that we should pay attention to that are specifically to support geothermal energy networks statewide -> this is also a signal that now is the time to be tackling this
Cooperative energy futures is having problems with current legislation and are trying to get them amended, actively in progress to be amended?
Leveraging being a leader and evolving to what's needed and increasing resilience in the city and the goals being in the form of communication
Incentive to be the one on the cutting edge, thinking through competitive vs. cooperative and getting out in front of it and not beng left behind
Feeling building power is vague, threw out the idea of switching to “building movement”, "building campaign” to make it feel more actionable more like what we’re doing
How did this group conclude this is the best option? Feeling concerned hearing that centerpoint wouldn’t be interested in doing it and xcel wouldn’t be a fan.
Investor owned would rate base it and get guaranteed profits for shareholders which then comes at the expense of affordability for us
Municipally owned then goes into the general fund of the city, and cooperatively owned goes back to the members of the co-op
It is possible we do this research and come out thinking this isn’t a viable idea
Centerpoint doesn’t seem very serious about decarbonizing their industry, they are relaying gas pipelines that will be in the ground for the next 30-40 years and are continuing to make new infrastructure.
Does the city council make the decision? Do they have the power?
Ann Arbor showed that the city can make their own utility
Feels the utility part needs to be fleshed out
Ann Arbor didn’t want to be responsible for all new infrastructure and there’s is based around more module components
Where is that funding going to come from?
Should change city council to be local government because it could be met council, it could be hennepin county
History in this city about municipally owned utilities, vote with the city council about creating city owned electricity that made it to a public hearing but never made it to a vote (maybe like 10-15 years ago)
Is there any effect with the Iran war?
This country is self-sufficient in natural gas
May be affected by global market and prices could go up
That may change centerpoints tune if prices for natural gas go up
Let’s keep revisiting and iterating the goal, should be living and breathing as we learn more
As long as the role is to make sure we get this done
That we want geothermal to power the buildings and residences in Minneapolis - BOOM and then its flexible enough to fit whatever solution we land on to make it happen
Lots of talk about educational campaigns
Like how do we learn enough to be able to talk about it and answer questions without trying to solve the whole thing
Like what do we need to put together to put together a strong argument for why this is important
One big question will probably be why is centerpoint and xcel against this?
Make shared google doc of general resources
Lots of hands up about understanding the general geothermal spiel
Anna and Aaron to be point people for intaking and organizing for resources
Wrapping up
Next meeting Monday April 6th
Paolo as guest speaker, Aaron to reach out
Grace to send out invite
Next meeting
Appetite to do brainstorming around research visits, what questions we want to tackle
Keep brainstorming and collecting resources in the meantime
Upcoming presentation on Sunday with Community Power
To think about
Open doors, suggesting to city geothermal buildings open up and show
Collections facility at u of m, May 9th and 10th