Coal Generated Electricity Not Banned from Oregon

A bill (SB1547) signed into law in March '16 does not contain language banning coal-fired electricity from delivery to Oregon's retail customers.  Even so, the Oregon Global Warming Commission’s 2017 Biennial Report to the Oregon legislature (Report) erroneously reports the existence of such a ban after 2030.   It also erroneously reports that both Portland General Electric (PGE) and PacifiCorp (PAC) are prohibited from allocating to Oregon retail customers any cost or benefit from coal-fired plants.  Figures 7-9 in the Report illustrate past and future CO2 emissions by these two utilities (Fig. 7 for PAC and Fig. 8 for PGE) and the statewide CO2 emission levels (Fig. 9) assume that Oregon takes credit for lowered CO2 emissions, even though SB1547 did not address coal plant operation in any way.  Furthermore, the statute in question expressly permits PGE to continue to include costs of its portion of Coalstrip in Oregon retail rates after 2030.  The law also permits cost recovery for market-based purchases, which will continue to include electrons from coal-fired generation as long as coal-fired generation operates within the geographic boundary of the Western Electric Coordinating Council.  Further, there is no language in the statute that prohibits either utility from assigning power marketing revenues from coal-fired electricity generation to its Oregon retail customers.  That's a good thing since PAC plans on operating 15 of its coal plants post-2030 and some into the 2040 timeframe.  Click here for a link to the full report.

image courtesy of pacificenvironment.org

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