Data centers and rates
Oregon's POWER Act: data centers and your electric bill
A plain-English reference to House Bill 3546: what it requires, which utilities and data centers it covers, and what it does and doesn't do for residential rates.
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The short answer
Oregon's POWER Act (House Bill 3546), signed June 16, 2025, requires the state's investor-owned utilities to put data centers that use 20 megawatts or more in their own rate class, charge them the costs of serving them, and sign service contracts of at least 10 years with minimum payments, so the cost of new grid capacity isn't shifted to homes and small businesses. It covers PGE, Pacific Power and Idaho Power, not consumer-owned utilities such as co-ops and PUDs. It protects households from data-center costs, but residential rates are still rising because of wildfire mitigation, storm recovery and grid upgrades.
Updated
- Law
- HB 3546, signed June 16, 2025
- Who it covers
- Data centers using 20 MW or more
- Utilities
- PGE, Pacific Power and Idaho Power
- Contracts
- 10 years or longer, with minimum payments
- First tariff
- PGE Schedule 96, approved May 2026
- Residential rates
- Still rising for other reasons
The law
What HB 3546 requires
Key provisions of Oregon House Bill 3546 (2025), the POWER Act
- Who counts as a large energy use facility
- A facility that uses, or can use, 20 megawatts or more and is primarily a data center (NAICS 518210: computing infrastructure, data processing and web hosting)
- Separate rate class
- The PUC must create a class of service just for these facilities, separate from other commercial and industrial customers, with its own tariff
- Who pays
- Costs of serving the class are allocated to the class, or assigned directly to each data center, including transmission, distribution, energy and capacity
- Protecting other customers
- Tariffs must reduce the risk of other customers paying unwarranted costs or having data-center costs shifted onto them
- Contracts
- Each data center must sign a service contract of 10 years or longer, with a start date and a minimum payment based on its projected usage
- Clean energy
- The PUC must weigh whether the rates undercut the utility's clean energy targets
- Reporting
- The PUC reports to the Legislature by September 1 of each even-numbered year on large-load growth, through 2034
- Effective
- Immediately on signing (emergency clause); utilities had until January 2, 2028 to put an approved tariff in place
Coverage
Which utilities and data centers it covers
The law applies to "electric companies" as Oregon defines them: the investor-owned utilities regulated by the Public Utility Commission. That's PGE, Pacific Power and Idaho Power. Consumer-owned utilities, including cooperatives, people's utility districts and city utilities, set their own rates and aren't covered.
| Area | Electric utility | Covered by the POWER Act? |
|---|---|---|
| Hillsboro and the west Portland metro | PGE | Yes |
| Prineville | Pacific Power | Yes |
| The Dalles | Northern Wasco County PUD | No, consumer-owned |
| Umatilla and Morrow counties | Umatilla Electric Cooperative and other consumer-owned utilities | No, consumer-owned |
Hillsboro and the west Portland metro
- Electric utility
- PGE
- Covered by the POWER Act?
- Yes
Prineville
- Electric utility
- Pacific Power
- Covered by the POWER Act?
- Yes
The Dalles
- Electric utility
- Northern Wasco County PUD
- Covered by the POWER Act?
- No, consumer-owned
Umatilla and Morrow counties
- Electric utility
- Umatilla Electric Cooperative and other consumer-owned utilities
- Covered by the POWER Act?
- No, consumer-owned
Some data center campuses are served by more than one utility. Check the utility on a specific project before drawing conclusions.
Implementation
How the PUC is putting it in place
PGE's large-load tariff, Schedule 96, was approved by the PUC in Order No. 26-154 on May 7, 2026 (docket UM 2377). It's the first POWER Act rate class, and it requires long-term contracts and full payment for the distribution upgrades data centers need.
Schedule 96 also adds a 1¢ per kWh charge on data centers of 100 megawatts or more, which goes toward energy assistance for residential customers.
Pacific Power's large-load rules are being handled in a separate PUC proceeding.
The PUC's first required report to the Legislature on large-load growth was due September 1, 2026, with updates every two years.
Your bill
What it means for residential rates
The POWER Act is designed to keep data-center growth from being paid for by households. It doesn't freeze residential rates. PGE's average residential rate rose from about 13.4¢ to 20¢ per kWh from 2021 to 2026 (up 49%), and Pacific Power's from about 10.9¢ to 17¢ (up 56%), driven mostly by wildfire mitigation, storm damage, transmission and grid upgrades, and power supply costs.
PGE has requested another residential increase for 2027. Solar, a prepaid solar lease or a battery are the ways homeowners can lock in part of their energy cost regardless of what drives future rate cases.
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POWER Act questions
Straight answers from the local team.
Sources
Updated by the National Solar team.
- Oregon Legislature: HB 3546 (2025), overview
- Oregon Legislature: HB 3546 enrolled text
- Oregon Public Utility Commission, Order No. 26-154, docket UM 2377 (PGE Schedule 96)
- National Solar Oregon electricity rate data (utility tariffs and EIA averages)