On July 24, 2025, the Oregon Public Utility Commission (Commission) issued an order conditionally acknowledging Portland General Electric’s (PGE) proposed 2025 All-Source Request for Proposals (RFP) for new generating resources. Acknowledgment is akin to a determination that the RFP is reasonable at the time of the Commission’s decision, and the acknowledgment decision will make it easier for PGE to recover costs of any resources ultimately procured from this RFP later in customer rates.
Traditionally, Oregon utilities would issue RFPs following Commission acknowledgment of the integrated resource plans (IRP) that utilities use to identify their resource needs and strategies for meeting those needs. PGE developed and filed its 2025 RFP after a 2023 procurement effort left the utility short on clean energy needed for compliance with Oregon’s 100% clean electricity law, HB 2021. The RFP seeks 1000 average megawatts of clean resources, a measure of energy that translates to roughly 3000 megawatts of renewable resource capacity.
The Commission’s decision, Order No. 25-279, separately considered the RFP and the scoring and modeling methodology (SMM), conditionally acknowledging both.
On the RFP itself, the conditions adopted by the Commission as part of its acknowledgment order addressed concerns by stakeholders including the Northwest & Intermountain Power Producers Coalition (NIPPC) and Renewable Northwest (RNW) that, if unaddressed, would have left the RFP less competitive. Less competitive RFPs are likely to result in procurement of more expensive resources, passing on additional costs to utility customers. These concerns included provisions that would have limited the physical points on the transmission system where bidders can deliver power to PGE, rejected bids using certain transmission products to deliver power, and allowed utility employees working on utility bids into the RFP greater access to information from third party bids.
On the SMM, the conditions adopted by the Commission also addressed concerns raised by NIPPC and RNW, rejecting a novel “Negotiation Escrow” that would have been charged to certain bidders selected to proceed to contract negotiation and directing PGE to update terms in its form contract related to costs associated with changes in law. The latter change was particularly important given the turbulent legal and policy background that applies to the clean energy industry in 2025.
The Commission declined to adopt other recommendations, including that PGE should allow bidders to use excess transmission, make utility-owned or controlled land around the PGE points of receipt available to all bidders, and adopt a change in law provision.
It is unclear whether the conditions adopted by the Commission will ensure a fair and competitive process and protect utility customers. Utilities have an incentive to structure RFPs to favor utility bids, because they profit by earning a return on the assets they own. The Commission’s order was designed to help counteract that incentive and ensure cost-competitive third party bidders can fairly compete in the RFP, so the utility will select the best bids for its customers.
Sanger Greene, PC represented both NIPPC (Irion Sanger and Ellie Hardwick) and RNW (Max Greene) in the Commission’s docket addressing PGE’s RFP, UM 2371.
NIPPC is a regional membership organization representing competitive power participants in the electricity sector in the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain region. Renewable Northwest is a member-based nonprofit advocacy organization with a mission to decarbonize the region by accelerating the transition to renewable electricity.
Disclaimer
These materials are intended to as informational and are not to be considered legal advice or legal opinion, nor do they create a lawyer-client relationship. Information included about previous case results does not assure a similar future result.
