Minnesota’s energy paradox: Household energy insecurity in the face of racial and economic disparities

The “Minnesota Paradox” points to the nation-leading socioeconomic indicators enjoyed in Minnesota that belie some of the largest racial disparities between the state’s majority White and minority Black populations. The Minnesota Paradox has been identified in indicators with complex, structural social determinants: income, employment, educational outcomes, incarceration rates, home ownership, and even drowning. In this paper, we ask if similar disparities exist in access to shared infrastructure systems, focusing on the electric system, an essential service delivered by heavily regulated public utilities. We examine disparities in access to electricity service across three dimensions: utility disconnection, service reliability, and availability of the grid to host distributed energy resources. We quantify disparities across Census block groups by leveraging unique, high-resolution datasets that have only recently been made publicly available. We find significant and pervasive evidence of the Minnesota Paradox across utility disconnection and service reliability. Across a battery of regression models, we find that living in neighborhoods with a greater concentration of people of color is associated with a statistically and practically significant difference in the likelihood of disconnection from service due to non-payment and the experience of extended power outages. We also find a positive association between communities with larger populations of people of color and hosting capacity, suggesting a potential opportunity to affirmatively address disparities in energy insecurity in the energy transition. These findings shed light on the pervasive nature of the Minnesota Paradox in the electric system, which underscores the pressing need for policy initiatives to rectify deep-seated inequalities and ensure all communities have equitable access to universal basic utility service and reliable, clean energy.