Electric cooperatives and municipal utilities; recovery of fixed costs clarified with respect to net metered facilities, meter aggregation allowed for electric cooperatives and municipal utilities, commission authority clarified with respect to electric cooperative practices, member access to cooperative documents and meetings improved, and electronic voting and voting by mail required for cooperative board directors.

This bill updates regulations for electric cooperatives and municipal utilities in Minnesota to clarify how they handle billing for small solar and other net metered facilities. It allows these utilities to charge a specific fee to recover fixed costs for small systems while prohibiting them from using other methods to collect those same costs. The legislation also permits electric cooperatives to aggregate multiple customer meters for billing purposes and requires cooperative board directors to use electronic voting or vote by mail. Additionally, the bill improves transparency by ensuring members have better access to cooperative documents and meetings.