These rural Minnesota towns were clean energy skeptics. Now they're installing solar

Griffin Peck fielded the questions from the Pelican Rapids City Council with ease. They were nothing Peck hadn’t heard before.

No, the solar panels wouldn’t blow off the roof during storms. Yes, ice and snow would collect on them, but both melt as the panels heat up in the sun. No, pests have never been an issue and, yes, they can be easily removed and reattached if you need to patch a leak or replace the shingles.

The scene unfolded during a public meeting in July as Peck, who works for West Central Initiative, a regional planning organization, and Jess Grondahl, chief operating officer of Fargo-based Holsen Solar, attempted to quell the council members’ concerns.

Over the past year, Peck has been trying to persuade Pelican Rapids and other western Minnesota cities to install rooftop solar on municipal buildings.

The council members needed to act quickly, Peck told them, or they’d lose out on generous tax incentives established by the Inflation Reduction Act. Those subsidies likely would become unavailable for any project that doesn’t begin construction by next year, after Congress amended the law earlier that month.

Still, Pelican Rapids City Council Member Steve Strand wasn’t buying it.

“I don’t know, I just,” Strand replied with hesitation. “I’m just not into the solar stuff. It’s not pretty.”

Then Peck and Grondahl showed them the numbers — Pelican Rapids would save more than $180,000 over 40 years on its electrical bill, about $4,500 every year. And because of the federal tax credits, a zero-interest loan from West Central Initiative and a rebate from their local utility Otter Tail Power Company, Pelican Rapids wouldn’t pay a dime up front and would start making money from the solar system in less than two years.

Even as the Trump administration retreats on the nation’s clean energy ambitions, the economics of solar power — now the least expensive form of electricity in many places — is winning over some skeptics in rural America.

After hearing about the savings, the Pelican Rapids City Council members silently exchanged glances before Strand spoke up to start the voting process.

“I think Shelley made a motion,” he joked, pointing to Council Member Shelley Gummeringer beside him. They both laughed. Council Member Curt Markgraf seconded the motion.

The vote was unanimous. Pelican Rapids, a city of just 2,600 people, would install its first solar system. Little did Peck know, eight more towns were about to do the same.

A 12-city pitch

In January 2024, Ben Schierer began reaching out to the mayors of Otter Tail County cities to talk about financial opportunities. Schierer himself had twice been elected mayor of Fergus Falls, which, with a population of about 14,000 people, was the county’s largest city.

Schierer now worked for West Central Initiative, in charge of partnerships. For nearly 40 years, the nonprofit has been an economic cornerstone for the region’s nine counties, providing small business loans, stewarding donations for capital projects and offering technical assistance for grant applications.

This particular opportunity was rooftop solar. Schierer and his colleagues realized they could combine the federal tax credits with the rebates offered by their utility, Otter Tail Power, to cover upwards of 90% of the installation costs.

West Central Initiative could even provide zero-interest loans to cover the remainder. That would allow the towns to repay the loans over time as their solar arrays generated cash by feeding electricity to the grid.

“We were just trying to bring all these resources together,” Schierer said. “All these opportunities were there, but these communities couldn’t access them [without help].”

By June 2024, they had hatched a plan. Schierer and Peck were now meeting with 12 different cities in Otter Tail County. If the towns agreed to install rooftop solar on one or two municipal buildings, then packaged their installations together as one project, it would easily attract a developer and get them a good deal, Peck told the city council members.

But the proposal wasn’t received well by all.

“There were a lot of questions from the council,” Perham Mayor Timothy Meehl told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “I actually voted against it.”

Brent Frazier, mayor of Pelican Rapids, also thought it was too good to be true. “Solar and wind are alternative energy sources, and I was a little apprehensive about that,” he said.

Fergus Falls, where West Central Initiative is located, was the first town to bow out. The city of Ottertail also didn’t think it could commit. Its building best suited for solar was in the middle of a renovation.

Some elected officials even took issue with the political past of Schierer, who as mayor of Fergus Falls served on an advisory board for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat. But Peck and Schierer weren’t giving up. There were still 10 towns left.

“I wasn’t going to spend time debating people on political matters,” Schierer said.

Evolving clean energy landscape

On July 4, Congress passed President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law set an early phaseout for hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits established by the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. Now solar and wind developers would need to bring their projects online before the end of 2027 to qualify for the subsidies.

Peck was nervous, calling the moment a “massive blow” to clean energy. Would other towns back out of the plan, Peck thought, after more than a year of planning and coordinating? “We don’t want it to be a political thing, obviously,” they said. “But I mean, solar is political in our country at this point, there’s no doubt about that.”

But in a stroke of luck, the final quote for the solar project came in about $30,000 below expectations. The towns would get an even better deal than what was originally pitched.

At the same time, U.S. energy costs were rising more than twice as fast as inflation, according to the Energy Information Administration. That, too, likely is influencing the adoption of solar in rural America, said Barry Rabe, a former environmental policy professor at the University of Michigan who now works as a political scientist at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

“This price pressure is real ... in every part of the United States, not just California, not just New York,” Rabe said. “It’s not going away.”

Holsen Solar was chosen among the dozen or so competitive bids West Central Initiative received, and Peck and Grondahl set out to share the good news with everyone. The annual energy savings for the towns ranged from $2,000 to nearly $6,000.

In Hoffman, that meant the town’s community center, which cost upwards of $8,000 each year to heat and cool, would cut its electrical bill by more than $5,000. “That’s awesome,” Hoffman Mayor Scott Anderson said. “We do fundraisers to try and get community members to donate money so that their kids can use this facility.”

One after another, the city councils for the remaining towns voted in favor of the project. First Hoffman, then New York Mills, Pelican Rapids, Battle Lake and Frazee. Ashby, Vergas, then Ogema came next. And then Parkers Prairie, followed by Perham.

Among them, only Perham’s City Council was split. Mayor Meehl and Council Member Brien Meyer voted no. The three others voted yes. Meehl said he hopes the savings turn out to be true.

This summer, Pelican Rapids replaced its only public pool, which had been built in the 1970s and had become a “maintenance nightmare,” Mayor Frazier said. Their energy savings likely will help them pay for upkeep on the new pool, he added, noting that it was full all summer.

Strand, the Pelican Rapids council member who initially fought against the proposal, said he couldn’t find a good reason to vote against it in the end. “Yeah, it’ll probably help pay for the pool a little bit,” he admitted, smiling.