Officials celebrate northern Minnesota power line that could one day help make ‘green’ steel

State and federal officials gathered at a electric utility substation in northeastern Minnesota Wednesday to celebrate the funding and approval of a $940 million transmission line project that’s designed to help power a carbon-free future for the Arrowhead region.

Duluth-based Minnesota Power plans to upgrade and expand an aging high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line that runs 465 miles from Center, N.D., to Hermantown to enable it to transport up to 1,500 megawatts of electricity, including renewable power from wind-rich North Dakota.

Minnesota Power’s transmission line is one of only a handful of existing HVDC lines in the country. These lines transmit electricity more efficiently over long distances than alternating current, or AC lines.

“Direct current is the best way to move lots of electricity far,” explained Pete Wyckoff, deputy commissioner of energy resources at the Minnesota Department of Commerce. “And we need more of these, particularly to places that need a lot of electricity.”

The project received approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission in August. It’s funded in part with a $50 million grant from the bipartisan infrastructure law. It also received $25 million from the state of Minnesota, including a $15 million appropriation from the legislature.

“We’ve never made a direct appropriation to a utility company, but we did it because we knew that we had to address climate change,” said State Sen. Grant Hauschild, DFL-Hermantown.

The project includes replacing converter stations at both ends of the line with new buildings and electrical infrastructure, allowing the utility to nearly double the amount of energy the line delivers. The stations convert the HVDC power to AC so it can flow onto the existing electric grid.

The upgraded line will also be able to move electricity in both directions, said Minnesota Power chief operating officer Josh Skelton.

The utility currently produces 60 percent of its electricity from carbon free resources, said Bethany Owen, CEO of Allete, the parent company of Minnesota Power.

The state’s utilities are required to produce 100 percent of their power from carbon free sources by 2040. Minnesota Power expects this project to be in service between 2028 and 2030.

Utilities and state and federal agencies are scrambling to build more electric transmission capacity in Minnesota and across the region, to transport renewable energy from where it’s produced — often in rural areas — to where it’s consumed.

While there’s not a huge population base in northeastern Minnesota, the region’s heavy industry uses enormous amounts of electric power, especially the six taconite mines and processing plants that dot the Iron Range.

The taconite ore mined in Minnesota is shipped to mills around the Great Lakes where it’s made into steel.

But officials believe this new transmission line, with its ability to transport huge amounts of renewable electricity, could pave the way to a future where more of that taconite ore is processed into steel and other products here in Minnesota.

“We can use electricity to make things like green hydrogen to react with Minnesota’s oxidized iron to make high value iron products,” said Wyckoff. Maybe even “green steel,” he continued. “That is the vision.”