Southeast Steam Plant
Southeast Steam Plant is a natural gas steam turbine combined-heat-and-power unit with 13 MW of nameplate capacity (2 MW net summer) in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The University of Minnesota has owned the facility since it purchased it in 1976 for $1 after Northern States Power had run it. The building dates to 1903, when it was built as the Twin City Rapid Transit Company Steam Power Plant to supply electricity for Minneapolis's streetcar system. Today it heats nearly all of the university's Minneapolis campus and generates electricity, sending steam through campus tunnels alongside supplying the University of Minnesota Medical Center. Since the university's larger Main Energy Plant came online in 2017, Southeast Steam Plant has shifted toward a backup and peaking role in the campus's district energy system. Day-to-day operations passed from Veolia North America to Ever-Green Energy, which took over management of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities district energy system in November 2024.