The Oregon House of Representatives has passed a new bill aimed at protecting residential utility customers and small businesses from bearing the financial burden of new transmission upgrades and power generation needed to accommodate data centers.
House Bill 3546 was passed with 41 votes in favor and 16 against. It grants the Oregon Public Utility Commission greater authority to ensure that data centers and cryptocurrency operations cover a fair share of the costs associated with new power plants and transmission lines. The bill will now move to the Oregon Senate for consideration.
Under the terms of the bill, regulators will have the authority to consider which customers are the primary beneficiaries of new infrastructure and allocate costs accordingly.
The bill will also require new data centers to purchase electricity from utilities for at least ten years. The provision is aimed at preventing short-term operations from leaving local ratepayers with infrastructure costs brought about by their energy demands.
The bill has already secured support from the Oregon Governor, Tina Kotek, who has pledged to sign the bill if it reaches her desk.
The bill was initially proposed in March and was sponsored by four Democrat representatives, including Rep. Pam Marsh. When proposing the bill, Marsh argued that data centers' impact on the grid is uncharacteristic of other large users, necessitating the new rules to shield other ratepayers.
The bill will only apply to data centers served by investor-owned utilities like Portland General Electric (PGE) and PacifiCorp, with other electric cooperatives that serve data centers in the state already holding the authority to shield residential customers.
Oregon is a notable data center market in the US, with Amazon, Meta, Google, and Apple all having a presence in the state. In February, Amazon Web Services announced its intention to expand its data center footprint in the state, after securing 400 acres in Arlington.
PGE supplied more than 1 million MWh of energy for data center customers in 2023, which was more than double the total recorded two years earlier. In total, data centers in Oregon consume 11 percent of the state's power.
