Minnesota leads the Midwest in clean energy report

While Northeast and West Coast states led a recent clean energy ranking of U.S. states, recent advances helped push Minnesota into the top ten.

Minnesota ranked 9th in Clean Edge’s eighth annual U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index, the only Midwest state in the top ten. Illinois and Michigan ranked 11th and 13th respectively, while the remaining Midwest states were in the bottom half of the rankings.

“Like every region, the states in the Midwest have their strengths and weaknesses,” said Andrew Rector, market analyst for Clean Edge...

...Wisconsin (which ranked 29th) has a thriving biomass generation sector and more natural gas vehicles than average, he said. Ohio (28th) doesn’t have much wind or solar now, Rector said, but that could change with a new wind farm being developed by Amazon and the reinstatement of its renewable portfolio standard....