Pacific Power will require new data centers to pay for all energy infrastructure they drive, under a deal headed to the Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC) for a final vote.

The agreement, first reported by the Oregon Capital Chronicle, would force data center operators to cover the full cost of new power plants, batteries, transmission lines and substations built to serve them. That includes upgrades that also benefit other customers.

The Citizens' Utility Board, a ratepayer watchdog, called the deal the strongest yet from a for-profit utility under Oregon's POWER Act. The 2025 law requires monopoly utilities to create a separate rate class for data centers so other customers do not subsidize the industry's massive electricity appetite.

For Bethany-area households on Pacific Power's grid, the deal matters because Washington County hosts one of Oregon's largest concentrations of data centers. Bob Jenks, executive director of the Citizens' Utility Board, told the Oregon Capital Chronicle that new transmission lines in Washington County could benefit all customer classes, since residential customers are also using more air conditioning in summer. Under the deal, a data center would pay its proportional share of any shared line. A 50-megawatt data center on a 100-megawatt transmission line, for example, would cover 50% of the cost.

New transmission lines cost millions per mile.

Both Pacific Power and Portland General Electric (PGE) have raised customer rates 50% since 2020. Data centers consumed about 23% of Oregon's retail electricity in 2025, according to a report from ECONorthwest and the University of Virginia. Oregon has 111 operational data centers, with 32 more in the pipeline.

Pacific Power currently has only a handful of data center customers, but Jenks said "dozens want to get onto their system, and some of them are massive."

The deal differs from PGE's approach, which the OPUC approved in July. PGE charges data centers based on peak-demand growth. After that approval, PGE announced data center rates would rise nearly 30%, while residential bills would decline slightly. Pacific Power's model assigns costs based on overall demand, a method Jenks said fits the utility's large, rural data center sites better.

Pacific Power's plan covers only future data centers. The utility will need to address costs from its current data center customers next spring.

Charlotte Shuff, outreach and communications director for the Citizens' Utility Board, said Pacific Power worked hard to reach the agreement. "We're really pleased with where we landed," Shuff told the Oregon Capital Chronicle on Sept. 23.

The Data Center Coalition, an industry group, is expected to challenge the deal. The coalition already appealed PGE's plan; the OPUC rejected that appeal, but the Citizens' Utility Board expects the coalition will take the case to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The three-member OPUC is scheduled to vote on the Pacific Power agreement Friday, Nov. 13. Residents can contact the commission at [email protected] or 800-848-4442 to weigh in before the vote.