Oregon PUC Delays PGE Data-Center Large-Load Rate Ruling to July; 29% Rate Hike at Issue Under POWER Act

Under Oregon HB 3546 (the POWER Act), Portland General Electric filed implementation tariffs requiring data centers over 20 MW to pay all grid-expansion costs themselves, with a proposed 29% rate increase for that data-center class. On June 10, 2026 the Oregon Public Utility Commission delayed its ruling on the tariffs to July, leaving the cost-allocation question — whether the public ratepayer base or the data-center load bears the grid-expansion cost — unresolved.

This is a regulatory inflection in the convergent-energy-demand-shock pattern documented in convergent-energy-demand-shock-crypto-and-ai: AI/data-center load growth forcing a cost-allocation reckoning that utilities and regulators resolve either toward ratepayer socialization or toward making the load bear its own expansion. Oregon’s POWER Act is one of the first statutory attempts to force the latter; the PUC delay marks the contested implementation. It parallels the New York data-center moratorium (2026-06-03–new-york-legislature-passes-statewide-data-center-moratorium-s10642) as a state-level counter-move against unpriced data-center grid burden.