Xcel Energy's huge solar and energy-storage facility in Becker, Minnesota, is getting closer to completion — and it's set to start pumping out power this fall, Canary Media reported.
Like many exciting energy projects that have recently been finished or are in development, the Sherco facility is being built on the former site of a coal-powered power plant. Coal produces toxic, heat-trapping air pollution when burned, so many states are shutting down their coal plants.
However, those sites still have industrial-sized connections to the power grid and lots of space — making them ideal for battery storage, solar farms, and other clean energy projects. Building on the existing infrastructure reduces costs and construction times, which means quicker, cheaper access to abundant clean energy for residents.
According to Canary Media, the Sherco facility will be built across former potato farms surrounding the coal plant site. It will be the largest solar project in the Upper Midwest and the fifth-largest in the United States when it's finished in 2026. Before this, Minnesota's biggest solar farm produced just 100 megawatts of power, so the Sherco facility, with more than seven times that capacity, is a game-changer.
Not only is the Sherco solar project supplying power as the coal plant shuts down, but it's also supplying union jobs, replacing the old plant as an employer in the region.
The Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act is a major factor making this project possible. As U.S. Sen. Tina Smith from Minnesota said at last year's groundbreaking, this is "the perfect example of how this historic legislation is paving the way to a clean energy future. It's providing targeted funding to repurpose existing energy infrastructure, like Sherco's old coal plant, with clean energy."
This ambitious project is helping Xcel Energy in its goal to reduce its air pollution 80% by 2030, per Canary Media. It's also helping keep Minnesota on track to reduce pollution to 50% of 2005's levels by 2030 and reduce it to zero by 2040, as the state declared in a law that passed last year.
The project is also one of the first large-scale applications of iron-air ("rust") batteries from Form Energy.
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