Pacific Power agreed to a plan that assigns the full cost of new generation, storage, transmission and local upgrades for future data centers to the data centers themselves, following negotiations under Oregon’s POWER Act. The state utility commission must still approve the deal.
Pacific Power’s proposal requires new data centers it serves to cover all costs for new power plants, batteries, transmission, distribution upgrades, and market purchases needed to serve them.
Industry groups, including the Data Center Coalition, are expected to appeal at least some recent decisions about how data center costs are assigned.
# What happened
# Power's plan works Pacific Power's proposal assigns responsibility for:
If infrastructure serves multiple customers, the data center would pay a share equal to its portion of overall demand. The Citizens' Utility Board used the example of a 100-megawatt transmission line needed to serve a 50-megawatt data center and other customers: the data center would pay for 50% of the line.
CUB and PGE representatives say their service territories face different challenges. Pacific Power customers are often in rural areas where a single large data center can trigger the need for lines or substations built specifically for that customer. PGE serves more small data centers in denser counties, where new transmission or generation can be argued to benefit many customers.
# Who backed and who may challenge the plan
# Why this matters for customers and infrastructure Data centers now account for a large share of Oregon's retail electricity sales—nearly one-quarter statewide—while utilities have raised customer rates roughly 50% since 2020. Sightline Institute analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration data attributes an 8% increase in Pacific Power's energy demand between 2013 and 2023 to data centers. New transmission lines are costly (several million dollars per mile in some cases) and the West faces a need for many more miles of transmission.
Under Pacific Power's plan, developers building new data centers would internalize infrastructure costs that previously could have been spread across other customer classes. That shifts near-term financial responsibility onto data center operators and reduces the chance of subsidization by residential and small-business customers.
# Next steps Power's plan becomes official. If the Data Center Coalition or other industry groups appeal, the dispute could move to the Oregon Court of Appeals, as happened with earlier PGE-related appeals.
The watchdog Citizens’ Utility Board called the agreement with Pacific Power “the strongest from a for-profit electric utility yet” under Oregon’s POWER Act. The post Pacific Power to charge new Oregon data centers for all costs associated with growing energy need appeared first on Salem Reporter .
Data centers are consuming nearly 25% of Oregon’s power Zachary Whalen Fri, 09/18/2026 - 06:00 Primary Image Primary Image Caption A report from ECONorthwest and the University of Virginia found gaps in available information on how data centers impact Oregon’s economy and communities. Oregon’s 111 data centers consume
A new report puts a spotlight on data centers in Oregon amid the AI data center debate.
Ohio has emerged as one of the top states for data center developers, with roughly 100 of the facilities already up and running and nearly 150 more on the way. Many of those planned facilities may never get built, but their projected electricity needs will drive up energy bills for Ohioans anyway. Utilities base…
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — As communities throughout Oregon struggle with how to handle the rising demand for data centers, another one could soon come online in downtown Portland. Menlo Digital submitted a proposal last month to convert five floors into a data center inside the 15-story Union Bank Tower building at 707 S
Open the app view to save this story, compare related coverage, and continue from the same source.