Portland General Electric $GE began charging data centers an average of 29% more for electricity on Wednesday, while cutting rates for residential and other customers, under rules approved by the Oregon Public Utility Commission.
The commission said rates for residential customers will fall by an average of 1.3%, with commercial accounts dropping 2.1% and industrial accounts dropping 1.4%. Officials said the monthly savings for a typical home consuming 780 kilowatt-hours would amount to roughly $1.91. Across PGE's service territory, the new rate structure touches a total of 963,000 customers, according to the commission.
House Bill 3546, referred to as the POWER Act and passed by Oregon legislators to create a distinct billing category for data centers and other large power consumers, is the legislation behind the revised rate structure. Commission Chair Letha Tawney issued a statement saying, "These changes ensure that costs created by data centers in PGE's territory are more accurately reflected in their rates." "By putting this structure in place now, we are getting ahead of a bigger issue, enabling responsible data centers to pay their own way, and protecting customers from higher costs in the future."
The rate adjustment follows PGE's filing last month for regulatory approval of the new structure, which the company said was designed to hold large-load customers financially responsible for the generation and transmission infrastructure their growth requires. The threshold for inclusion under the law is a project drawing more than 20 megawatts. PGE had previously received commission approval on May 7 to become the first utility in Oregon to implement the POWER Act.
Between early 2020 and mid-2025, PGE's data center electricity consumption rose from 50 average megawatts to over 300 — demand comparable to roughly 240,000 households, according to KOIN. Under the old pricing structure, homeowners were being charged more than double the per-kilowatt-hour rate applied to data centers, according to the Oregon Citizens' Utility Board. Bob Jenks, executive director of the Oregon Citizens' Utility Board, said the outcome confirms the group's position. "The significant increase in data center rates confirms our belief that data centers were not paying for the costs incurred to serve them," he said. "With the new rate structure, we should see a slowdown in the significant increases to home PGE bills."
PGE's regulatory filings listed five companies operating 16 facilities as falling within the new rate class, though none were identified by name.