Powerlines in Hood River County above the Columbia River move electricity from the Bonneville Dam to customers across the region on July 25, 2024. (Photo by
Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
The Northwest Power Planning Council was formed in 1981 in response to concerns in the area about the future availability of energy and the potential impact on power production on various business sectors and on the environment, especially fish runs.
Formed by Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, the Portland-based commission was high-profile and even controversial for a while, but it fell off the public radar eventually its regional energy and environmental plans were completed. Now called the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, its mission in recent years often has focused more heavily on fish runs than on energy production.
And that’s brought criticism.
In 2013,one of its original members, Chris Carlson from Idaho, called for its dissolution.
“It has been a gargantuan waste and its shortcoming in and producing a viable plan to restore the wild salmon and steelhead fishery runs decimated by the four lower Snake River dams is prime reason to put the council out of its misery,” he said in an essay.
He’s not alone in questioning the council’s ongoing role. Since the period four decades ago when planners expected the region to run far short of electricity, conservation has taken hold, new power sources have been developed, grid lines have been strengthened and renewable energy such as wind and solar have been installed.
Lately, however, the Northwest seems on the verge of something approaching a 1980-style regional shortage. In a report in December, Sarah Smith, research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said: “The electricity use had somewhat stabilized for a few years [in the 2010s]. We are in that growth phase again and climbing up what’s hopefully an s-curve and not an ‘exponential-forever’ curve.”
That brings in the council. It could serve the region in a big way by adjusting its mission to what could become the largest resource crisis the region has seen since the organization’s early days, with new mass power users pouring into the region. Data centers may be among the largest. The Northwest and especially the Columbia River area have become highly popular locations for data centers, which companies such as Amazon and Google use to handle their online traffic. They use an immense amount of electricity, and in some cases water as well, throwing a curve into the region’s power picture.
This has had a massive effect on electricity rates for Oregon customers. Portland General Electric, for example, has exacted large rate increases two years in a row.
This year’s Oregon legislative session is likely to see measures intended to block these tech companies’ power demands from boosting at least residential rates even higher. Two placeholder bills on studying utilities have been filed, Senate Bill 128 and House Bill 3158, and Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, is working on another one.
“People who are our largest energy users should be paying for the cost of their energy. That’s just a basic consumer protection issue here,” she told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
The Citizens Utility Board, a Portland-based watchdog group established by voters in 1984 to represent consumer interests, also has made energy affordability its top priority for the 2025 session. The group said it is “working to find long-term solutions to address the energy affordability crisis too many in Oregon are facing. We will also be focusing on adding more consumer protections for utility customers.”
The problem stretches beyond Oregon, however, and the Legislature’s ability to contain it may be limited. If electric utilities are obliged to add more expensive power sources in coming years, someone will have to pay for them.
Much the same can be said for cryptocurrency, management hubs of which also use immense amounts of juice and likely will be seeking out low-cost areas such as the Northwest, especially if the new Trump administration carries through with fostering crypto.
A third new source of pressure on electric supply concerns electric vehicles, both passenger units and commercial large trucks.
Electric vehicles have become notably popular in Oregon, and the number of charging stations around the state — by late 2023 there were 2,960 in 1,182 places — has exploded. As of November 2023, electric vehicles registered in Oregon totalled 83,047.
The number of large electric trucks in Oregon is likely to grow. On Jan. 1, a new state Department of Environmental Quality requirement says that at least 7% of all Class 8 heavy trucks sold in Oregon must be electric, with the percentage rising annually. That triggered Daimler, an international truck manufacturer with North American headquarters in Portland, to stop selling electric trucks in Oregon for a month. Still, the rule change reflects a shifting motor vehicle marketplace and a massive new user of electric power.
The council appears to be looking at some of these issues.
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