Partners Seek Minnesota Renewable Development Account Funding to Support Necessary Infrastructure; CleanCounts to Enhance Registry Capabilities for Ammonia Energy Attribute Certificates
Central Farm Service, TalusAg, & CleanCounts Announce Project to Bring Locally Produced Ammonia to Minnesota
TRUMAN, Minn. and BLUE EARTH, Minn., March 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Central Farm Service (CFS), TalusAg, and CleanCounts today announced a collaborative project to build Talus10 local ammonia production facilities in Minnesota, marking the first time locally produced ammonia fertilizer will be commercially available. Pending support from the Renewable Development Account (RDA) which will be decided in Minnesota’s 2026 Legislative Session, the project will deliver a first-of-its-kind regional supply of ammonia fertilizer directly to CFS member-owners, helping shield farmers from the price volatility seen in ammonia fertilizer markets.
Using electricity from Blue Earth Light & Water, the two Talus10 systems will each convert air, water, and power into up to 20 tons per day of locally produced ammonia, enabling reliable, local production of a fertilizer essential to crop production across the region and a fuel for power generation.
For Minnesota farmers—who have endured years of price shocks driven by international gas markets and geopolitical instability—this project offers a new model of price stability, supply certainty, and independence. The project will provide supply of ammonia to cover more than two-thirds of CFS’ annual ammonia sales and field applications to more than 100,000 total acres.
“Ammonia prices have swung by more than 300% in recent years,” said KC Graner, CEO of Central Farm Service, a farmer-owned cooperative serving nearly 4,500 members across southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. “Local production gives our member-owners a level of control and predictability they’ve never had before—and it strengthens the economic resilience of every farm we serve.”
“This is a great example of cooperatives looking to the future to ensure our members have certainty of supply and price for the products they need to produce a quality crop,” said Kurt Koehler, Board Chair, Central Farm Service.
TalusAg, which completed a one-ton-per-day local ammonia production project in early 2025 in collaboration with Landus, an Iowa-based agriculture cooperative, will bring its modular, rapidly deployable Talus10 technology to Minnesota.
“Local ammonia production is the future of agricultural fertilizer,” said Hiro Iwanaga, co-founder & CEO of TalusAg. “By producing ammonia where it’s used, we ensure reliable supply, reduce transportation costs, and provide price stability to one of American farmers’ biggest variable costs.”
Minnesota Renewable Development Account: Catalyzing Innovation
Funding from Minnesota’s Renewable Development Account—established under Minn. Stat. § 116C.779 to support innovative energy technologies—is being sought by the partners to cover necessary infrastructure for the project. The RDA’s mission is to accelerate solutions that benefit Minnesota ratepayers, reduce emissions, and spur rural economic development.
Ensuring Credible Clean Fuel Markets Through CleanCounts
As part of the project, CleanCounts—the largest registry and source of truth for compliance and voluntary clean energy markets within North America—will enhance its existing capabilities for issuance, retirement, and transacting Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) for ammonia. While known for its best-in-class services focused on supporting electricity and clean fuels markets across North America, CleanCounts is expanding into tracking ammonia.
CleanCounts supports more U.S. state and Canadian province regulatory programs than any other single registry and brings the same level of rigor, transparency, and verification to voluntary buyers as is required by state regulators nationally. The process is similar to how the organization tracks renewable energy and issues Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and Renewable Thermal Certificates (RTCs) for clean fuels like biomethane and green hydrogen.
EACs for ammonia produced using renewable energy, and other low-emissions methods, will verify the production of ammonia and attach a carbon intensity measurement to ammonia quantities, enabling downstream buyers, co-ops, and supply chain partners to make clear, auditable claims about ammonia-related emissions.
“As one of the world’s largest clean energy registries, CleanCounts has spent nearly 20 years serving our nonprofit mission focused on trust, transparency, and market integrity,” said CleanCounts CEO Ben Gerber. “Certificates for clean ammonia will give all market participants confidence that a verified amount of ammonia has been produced using zero or other low-emissions methods.”
“As ammonia begins to play a larger role in both agriculture and energy systems, market confidence is essential. Our role at CleanCounts is to ensure that every clean ammonia certificate represents real, verified production with transparent emissions data so buyers and supply-chain partners can make credible, auditable claims,” said James Critchfield, head of registry and market integrity for CleanCounts.
Research Expands on World-Leading Model
The West Central Research and Outreach Center (WCROC) at University of Minnesota, Morris built the world’s first wind power to local ammonia production facility in 2013 and expanded it substantially over the following years. Today, the facility at WCROC generates more than one ton of ammonia per day and includes leading research and production partners.
As part of the TalusAg/CFS project, Great Plains Institute will receive funding and work with WCROC on grid data to advance wind power to ammonia, and ammonia production to prevent wind power curtailment.
“Local production of nitrogen fertilizer makes sense for many reasons,” said Mike Reese, Green Ammonia Research Lead and Director of Operations at WCROC. “Primarily, farmers are able to lock in the cost of a key crop input and, the dollars that typically go elsewhere to purchase this fertilizer remain in our communities helping support rural economies.”
Addressing Curtailed Wind Power
Concurrent with the announcement Agricultural Utilization and Research Institute (AURI) and Great Plains Institute issued reports highlighting the opportunity to generate millions of dollars in rural county property tax by preventing the curtailment of wind power through behind-the-meter generation of local ammonia.
Unlike most states, owners of wind turbines in Minnesota pay property tax based on the turbines’ annual production. Curtailment of wind power results in lost property tax revenue to rural counties. A 2022 letter from Murray County to the Minnesota Department of Commerce notes:
- Over 70 percent of energy produced from wind turbines in Minnesota comes from just six rural counties: Lincoln, Mower, Jackson, Nobles, Pipestone, and Murray;
- Between 2020 and 2022 Murray County experienced a 34% drop in energy production property tax revenue due to wind turbines being curtailed;
- Between 2020 and 2022 Fenton and Moulton Townships experienced a 54% and 52% drop in energy production property tax revenue due to wind turbines being curtailed;
- Counties have been told that imposed curtailment by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) is due to economic dispatch drivers.
According to data from National Lab of the Rockies, today more than eight million MWh of wind is curtailed from generation in the MISO North region. National Lab of the Rockies’ Cambium models further show that, even with announced and planned expansions in transmission infrastructure, curtailment will increase to more than 15 million MWh in 2035.
Distributed ammonia generation facilities, such as the project proposed by TalusAg, can be placed in key locations so that electricity produced by wind turbines is used to produce local ammonia fertilizer during times of grid congestion instead of curtailing the turbine.
Preventing curtailment of wind turbines—through use of distributed ammonia generation during times of grid congestion—is a way for rural counties and townships to control and maximize property tax revenue while also supporting additional economic development.
National and regional leaders welcomed the announcement:
“By supporting initiatives like Talus and the use of credible registries such as CleanCounts, PepsiCo aims to advance lower-carbon, locally produced fertilizer solutions that can help strengthen supply chain resilience and deliver climate benefits for agriculture,” said Margaret Henry, VP Sustainable Agriculture at PepsiCo.
“The City of Blue Earth is committed to fostering a resilient economy and this technology creates a dynamic industrial park where enterprises can expand and thrive. We proactively welcome and want to collaborate with development that aligns with the city’s focus on smart growth and sustainability,” noted Rick Scholtes, Mayor of the City of Blue Earth.
“From an economic development standpoint, we offer a business-friendly environment with resources to support businesses of all sizes,” said Blue Earth Economic Development Specialist Amy Schaefer. “We are grateful for the flexibility and confident in the reliable infrastructure Blue Earth Light & Water invested in the City of Blue Earth.”
“From an energy perspective, this is about building a circular system that works for Minnesota,” said Rachel Stuckey, Executive Director of the Minnesota Conservative Energy Forum. “We already generate a lot of wind and solar power, and at times that energy is curtailed. Using that electricity to produce ammonia locally allows it to be stored, transported, and put to use later — whether as a clean fuel for power generation and shipping, or as a critical input for mining and materials like steel that are essential to building energy infrastructure. Done right, this kind of local production can reduce curtailment, create new revenue for rural counties, and strengthen industries that have long been part of Minnesota’s economic and energy history, not to mention reducing dependence on foreign supply chains at a time when that risk is increasingly clear.”
“The Region Nine Development Commission is extremely proud to have this development coming to the City of Blue Earth in our region,” said Sabri Fair, Environment & Sustainability Planner, Region Nine Development Commission. “We have worked deeply with communities across our region building relationships and knowledge to bring the opportunities of the clean energy transition to our rural communities. When we heard that TalusAg and CleanCounts wanted to leverage low-cost wind power on the grid in our region, we knew Tim Stoner at Blue Earth Light and Water was the first connection we wanted to make. And now with the leadership of these great partners we look forward to seeing this project break ground and start creating a cleaner and more resilient economy in south central Minnesota.”
“We welcome disruptive technology and innovation in the GreenSeam region, especially solutions that can be a game changer for reliable nitrogen access. This facility not only supports the farmers who feed the world but also drives job creation and economic growth across our rural communities.” Sam Ziegler, Director of GreenSeam, a Mankato, Minn. area nonprofit. “I applaud the innovation and partnership working to make this project a reality.”
“This project is exactly what the Renewable Development Account was created to support: practical, commercially available innovation that strengthens Minnesota’s economy while making better use of the energy resources we already have,” said George Damian, Director of Government Affairs at Clean Energy Economy Minnesota. “By pairing local ammonia production with identifying the specific areas of the grid with surplus wind generation, this project tackles wind curtailment, supports distributed energy resources, and delivers real value to farmers and rural communities. It’s a bipartisan win that’s good for agriculture, good for energy reliability, and good for keeping dollars and jobs here in Minnesota rather than sending them out of state or overseas.”
“NRDC has found that producing fertilizer with electrolytic hydrogen is one of the highest value uses of hydrogen in agriculture. Instead of using price volatile natural gas to produce hydrogen for fertilizer production, this proposal incentivizes the use of electrolytic hydrogen that utilizes renewable energy. This funding proposal will help unlock federal 45V tax credit funding to launch Minnesota’s low carbon fertilizer industry and minimize price volatility for farmers,” said Erik Kamrath, Hydrogen Advocate, Natural Resources Defense Council.
About Central Farm Service (CFS)
CFS is a farmer-owned cooperative serving more than 3,600 member-owners across southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. The co-op provides agronomy, energy, grain, and feed services designed to maximize farm profitability and long-term resilience. Learn more at www.cfscoop.com.
About TalusAg
TalusAg is an agriculture technology and energy infrastructure company that provides affordable and reliable fertilizer through its local distributed network of green ammonia systems. Talus locally produces this critical raw material in a more cost-competitive and reliable way to support farmers in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit www.talusag.com.
About CleanCounts
CleanCounts is North America’s most expansive clean energy registry and a trusted gateway to environmental markets. As a nonprofit organization, CleanCounts empowers participants across the energy ecosystem to track, trade and validate clean energy production and consumption with confidence and transparency. CleanCounts’ cross-function teams have a combined 510 years of software experience and 117 years of clean energy registry-specific experience. Learn more at www.CleanCounts.org.
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A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/83c14682-0133-45f3-8c31-90aac9ea172b
