Integrated Resource Planning and Clean Energy Planning

• Electrification of vehicles, homes, and businesses (including increased demand from data centers and businesses using AI) will accelerate load growth in the years ahead. This CEP/IRP anticipates and plans for that load as PGE decarbonizes.

• PGE will need to add non-emitting energy resources and capacity at an accelerated pace in order to maintain system reliability, while we systematically reduce the generation and purchase of fossil fuels to achieve emissions targets.

• PGE’s planned path to emissions targets features a decline in emissions associated with sales to Oregon retail customers from 2026-2030 and 2030-2040. Actual reductions may vary year-by-year due to variables that impact emissions that are beyond PGE’s control and/or the pace of clean energy acquisition and integration.

• Achieving emissions targets reliably and affordably will require access to a wider geographic diversity of resources and the transmission solutions to access them. Participation in regional markets and partnerships that allow PGE to pool resources and source clean energy from across the West can increase reliability and lower costs for our customers.

Significant transmission constraints drive a greater role for customer-sited resources, including demand response and energy efficiency, and community-based renewable energy (CBRE) resources in this CEP/IRP. PGE plans to pursue all cost-effective energy efficiency and demand response during the Action Plan window. PGE establishes a target for CBRE resources of 155 MW by 2030 and PGE continues to solicit offers for CBRE resources through the end of 2025.

• The growing role of customer-sited and community-based renewable energy resources in PGE’s decarbonization efforts underscores the importance of PGE’s ongoing efforts to enhance the capacities of distributed energy resources to provide local and system value when managed as a Virtual Power Plant.

• PGE continues to identify a significant need to procure non-emitting resources and capacity to keep pace with new customer demands, system reliability, and to make progress toward emissions targets.

• Pathways to 2040 will require further development of non-emitting resources to meet the region’s energy and capacity needs.

• PGE’s natural gas plants will continue to play a role in helping to meet our resource adequacy needs during the clean energy transition. PGE will continue to invest in the efficiency, safety, and emissions controls of those facilities as appropriate.

• Efforts to specify the sources of generation for resources currently procured through short-term market purchases will reduce PGE’s reported emissions and future energy needs.

• Utilizing federal, state, and local funding opportunities to support decarbonization on our system will be essential to mitigate customer price pressure during the transition.

• PGE’s success will require deep and continued collaboration with our customers, communities, and stakeholders and with a wide range of leaders at all levels of government.

2023 CEP & IRP Update full document

• Introduction

• Chapter 1. CEP Update

• Chapter 2. Planning environment

• Chapter 3. System needs

• Chapter 4. Transmission landscape

• Chapter 5. Resource options

• Chapter 6. Resource plan

• Chapter 7. Action plan

• Appendix A. Federal grant funding

• Appendix B. Sequoia methodological update

• Appendix C. Qualified Facilities (QF) capacity update

• Appendix D. Hourly emissions methodology

• Appendix E. Energy Trust of Oregon (ETO)

• Appendix F. Market for non-emitting energy

• Appendix G. Stakeholder engagement

• Appendix H. Transmission planning and interconnection process

• Appendix I. Inputs for state RA requirements portfolio

• Appendix J. Transmission options study

Clean Energy Surplus Modeling Study

Estimating Hourly Clean Energy Surplus Available in the WECC Market

To address directives from OPUC Staff in Docket LC 80, PGE partnered with Brattle Group to develop a Clean Energy Surplus Model (CESM). This tool estimates the hourly availability and premium cost of clean energy across the WECC that is deliverable to PGE. The CESM was built in response to concerns that PGE’s clean energy procurement strategy needed to better reflect renewable energy hourly generation profiles rather than annual averages.

Energy Efficiency Resource Forecast

Energy Trust of Oregon (ETO) provided Portland General Electric (PGE) with a 20-year forecast of cost-effective (CE) energy efficiency (EE) resources using its Resource Assessment Model. The model identifies measures that meet ETO’s cost-effectiveness criteria and results in projections of annual energy savings. These forecasts are incorporated into PGE’s load forecasting models.

The ETO’s 2025 Resource Assessment Model projects that PGE can achieve 171.7 average megawatts (aMW) of CE EE savings from 2025 to 2029 and more than 675 aMW by 2043—representing increases of 11% and 22%, respectively, over the results used in the 2023 IRP. This increase in CE EE savings potential is primarily driven by higher projected load growth—especially in the commercial sector—increased cost effective thresholds, updated assumptions for EE measures, the influence of lighting market transformation and House Bill 2531, and the rising levels of residential electrification.

Transmission Options Analysis

As part of the 2023 CEP/IRP Update, PGE analyzed new and existing transmission pathways for their potential to provide capacity and energy in support of reliability and clean energy integration requirements. This analysis estimated the timing and potential of resources available from key transmission options that access diverse geographic regions. These options informed IRP resource availability assumptions for Portfolio Expansion.

Market Liquidity Analysis for PGE

PGE contracted with Energy GPS to conduct a market liquidity analysis for energy markets adjacent to the Pacific Northwest. This analysis informed additional market access benefits that studied transmission projects may provide. To estimate the additional market access benefits of a transmission project, Energy GPS analyzed correlations in PGE’s hours of greatest load with high load hours in CAISO, Desert Southwest (DSW), Midcontinent ISO (MISO) North, and Southwest Power Pool (SPP) North markets.