Oregon’s main regulated electric utility, Portland General Electric (PGE), has filed for approval of new rates under the state's Power Act, which establishes new rate classes for large-load users such as data centers.

The rate changes are scheduled to take effect on June 10, 2026, pending review and approval from the Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC).

The filing follows the Oregon PUC's approval of the new regulations in May and is directed by the Power Act, which was passed by the Oregon Legislative Assembly on June 5, 2025, and officially signed into law in August 2025.

The act creates a new rate class for data centers and crypto mining operations at 20MW and above, requiring that the rate reflect all costs of providing energy to those facilities. Secondly, it mandates a long-term contract between the utility and the incoming data center, specifically to address the stranded-asset risk at the heart of the ratepayer-protection problem.

According to PGE, the new regulations will result in large load data center customers experiencing a 29 percent increase in energy costs, while residential customers would see a 1.3 percent fall, small business customers a 3.7 percent decrease, commercial customers a 2.2 percent fall, and industrial customers a 1.5 percent decrease.

“Oregon is building a modern regulatory framework that supports responsible growth while keeping customer affordability front and center,” said John McFarland, chief customer officer at PGE. “As energy demand from large-energy users grows, this approach helps ensure the costs of new infrastructure are paid by the customers driving that growth, protecting residential and small business customers while continuing to support economic development across our region.”

“When communities decide to bring in a new large energy user, whether a data center, manufacturer, or local employer, PGE takes its responsibility seriously to serve them safely and reliably, just as we serve every household and business across our region,” added McFarland.

According to PGE spokesperson Ben Morris, 16 data centers in the state would be immediately impacted by the new rates and be subject to fees to cover grid upgrade costs.

The order also imposes renewable energy requirements on data centers before they come online and introduces exit fees for facilities that abandon projects before completion.

Oregon is part of a growing tide of states enacting or seeking to enact new rules to protect ratepayers from bill hikes driven by rising energy demand from data centers.

Earlier this month, Oklahoma’s governor, Kevin Stitt, signed a new bill into law aimed at protecting ratepayers from rising utility and infrastructure costs associated with data centers. This closely followed Florida, whose governor signed into law a similar bill that prohibited utilities from passing data center infrastructure costs on to residential and small-business ratepayers and required large-scale users to bear their full cost of service.

Other states to see similar rules proposed and passed include Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia, to name a few.