Pacific Power has finalized a plan that forces data centers across its Oregon territory, including facilities tied to Meta near Prineville and a massive Amazon project near Boardman, to shoulder the full cost of the power generation, transmission, and purchases needed to run their servers. The agreement does not raise data center rates or lower residential rates immediately, but it locks in a framework meant to keep those enormous new electrical loads from being paid for by everyday customers.
The plan approved by Pacific Power, as reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, requires new power acquired for data centers to be free of greenhouse gas emissions and mandates that large facilities sign power contracts lasting at least 10 years. Data centers that exit those contracts early will pay a fee and may be required to post collateral covering that cost. Very large data centers, defined as those using more than 100 megawatts, will also pay 1 cent per kilowatt hour into a fund supporting home repairs and energy-efficiency upgrades for low-income customers.
Pacific Power serves some of Meta's data centers in Prineville, where the company operates under the code name Vitesse, according to the same OregonLive report. The utility also has a deal to supply a new Amazon data center site near Boardman in eastern Oregon that is slated to become the state's first exascale data center. Portland General Electric, which serves the data center cluster in Hillsboro, approved a similar agreement earlier in 2026 that raised data center rates by 30 percent while cutting residential rates by 1.3 percent.
Objections Filed, Then Withdrawn
Both Meta and Amazon filed objections to Pacific Power's proposal in July 2026, but neither company objected to the utility's final proposal filed in September. Kyra Coyle said the earlier version of the plan was collectively discriminatory toward data center customers, per the same OregonLive account, though the objection did not carry into the finalized agreement. The Data Center Coalition did object to Pacific Power's plan, and the industry group is expected to appeal similar rules approved for PGE, known as Order No. 26-154, to the Oregon Court of Appeals, according to Oregon CUB.
Consumer advocates told OregonLive that Pacific Power's agreement will have a bigger long-term impact than PGE's earlier deal. Charlotte Shuff said the agreement is a really big deal for customers, and the plan is designed to protect affordability for other business and residential customers even as hyperscale demand grows. Rick Link said the framework assigns all costs of serving a new large customer specifically to that customer, rather than spreading them across the broader ratepayer base.
Statewide Rules Take Effect Under the POWER Act
Pacific Power's plan builds on the Protecting Oregonians With Energy Responsibility Act, which the Oregon Legislature passed in June 2025 as the first law in the nation requiring investor-owned utilities to set separate rate classes for facilities using 20 megawatts or more, according to OPB. Before that law took effect, large industrial data centers on PGE's grid paid roughly 8 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to nearly 20 cents paid by residential customers, OPB reported. The Oregon Public Utility Commission is scheduled to consider Pacific Power's plan in October, and the plan may still face challenges from data center operators, per OregonLive's reporting.
The commission's procedural schedule for Pacific Power's docket, filed after a joint stipulation on September 16, sets a target order date of November 13, with new rates scheduled to take effect January 1, 2027, according to the Public Utility Commission of Oregon. Pacific Power's agreement represents the second major implementation of the POWER Act statewide, following PGE's earlier adoption of its own data center rate schedule, Oregon CUB notes.
Bigger Fight Over Grid Costs and Household Bills
The rate reform arrives against a backdrop of steep household utility pain. During 2025 legislative testimony on the POWER Act, the Oregon Citizens' Utility Board reported that residential electricity bills for PGE and Pacific Power customers had jumped nearly 50% since 2021, contributing to a record 53,000 household utility service disconnections by October 2024, according to the Oregon Legislature. Regional demand pressure is only intensifying: a draft report from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council projected that Pacific Northwest electricity demand will grow 50% over the next six years, requiring $2.3 billion in fixed infrastructure investments by 2032, largely due to data center growth, as Hoodline previously reported.
Other Oregon policymakers are moving on parallel tracks to rein in data center growth. Four Oregon Democratic lawmakers announced plans in August to introduce a three-year statewide moratorium on new large data center construction during the 2027 legislative session, following Governor Tina Kotek's executive order halting state-owned land leases for data centers through July 2027. Separately, Oregon House Bill 4084 has temporarily suspended new data centers from obtaining property tax exemptions through the state's Enterprise Zone program through mid-2027, pausing incentives that previously saved tech firms more than $450 million annually. The City of Woodburn also enacted its own 120-day moratorium in September to assess local power, water, and noise impacts before approving new data center proposals.
Oregon's moves reflect a national trend as states scramble to manage AI-driven energy demand. Public utility commissions in 37 states and 18 state legislatures had approved or considered large-load tariffs as of March 2026 to assign grid expansion costs directly to hyperscale facilities, according to the Evergreen Collaborative. Whether Oregon's guardrails can keep household bills stable while the region absorbs a projected surge in data center demand remains the central question hanging over the next several months of regulatory review.
