Another Coal Power Plant Bites The Dust (Shhh! Don’t Tell Trump!)

A big coal power plant in Minnesota is being replaced by solar power, batteries, and a new transmission line. Xcel Energy's Sherco plant, once the state's largest at 2.2 gigawatts, is shutting down its three coal units one by one. One unit is already retired, another is close behind, and the last is set to close in 2030. In their place, Xcel has finished building a 710-megawatt solar array near the old plant site, with a fourth phase planned that would bring the total to 910 megawatts by 2029, enough to power more than 190,000 homes.

To back up all that solar, Xcel is adding two large lithium-ion battery systems (up to 600 megawatts combined) and testing a newer type of battery called iron-air storage, built by the startup Form Energy. A new power line, the Minnesota Energy Connection, will carry this renewable electricity to homes across Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, with a small backup gas plant on standby for times when solar and wind fall short.

None of this requires homeowners to do anything, but it does mean cleaner electricity is coming to the regional grid. Nationally, the trend is similar: government data through May 2026 shows renewable electricity generation up about 10% from a year earlier, led by solar, while coal capacity fell nearly 11%. For homeowners weighing electric upgrades like heat pumps, this shift toward solar and storage means the power supplying those upgrades is increasingly coming from cleaner sources.