May 4, 2026

📝 MPLS MGU monthly meeting at Central Library

Meeting overview

1. We went through a very high level review of the state-wide thermal energy network site suitability study

   1. See the whole study here

   2. Here are the slides from the webinar we went over

2. We then talked about the Minneapolis thermal energy network site suitability RFP (request for proposal) that is kicking off now with completion expected sometime in 2027

   1. We discussed how it’ll shift the work we’re doing from creating our own proposal for the city to do a geothermal utility study to advocating to the general population the importance of this study and for the city to pursue a municipal owned utility model

3. As a group we brainstormed methods of outreach to help move our work to focus on advocacy and general education.

   1. We talked about reading and discussing the book “About Power” by George Crocker in future meetings

      1. Available for purchase online or there are 2 copies available through the Hennepin County Library system

   2. You can find our brainstorm online here where I’ve started to group together some common activities that I used for our June meeting survey (linked above)

4. Our last agenda item was to review the project website we put together to capture upcoming meetings, previous meeting notes and organize our research resources. There was a general consensus that this would be helpful to move forward with and publish.

   1. Project website: https://www.mpls-mgu.com/

   2. Feedback so far: create landing page for general population, create an about us page to explain our group and who we are, create QR code directing to landing page to use on flyers and other communication materials

   3. Please reach out to me (Grace) with any more feedback or if you have any interest in helping designing, building or maintaining the site!