Innovating to Keep Electricity Affordable

Electric companies are undergoing profound transformation. To meet rising demand, address the escalating risk of extreme weather and wildfires and advance the clean energy transition, we are investing and upgrading to a more resilient, modern grid. At the same time, we have a responsibility to keep the cost of energy affordable for all customers.

Major load growth makes this easier, even if the magnitude of data center and other high-tech demand is less than current expectations. Today, energy use is accelerating, driven by onshoring and reshoring of manufacturing, as well as the electrification of homes, transportation, and industries.

With more customers and demand on the grid, operating costs are spread out, supporting lower prices. Capturing the benefits of this growth will require operational discipline and a consistent focus on innovation.

At Portland General Electric, we are: Deploying new systems to drive efficiencies across our generation plants, transmission and distribution operations; Utilizing public-private partnerships to lower the cost of clean energy and new technologies; and Deepening our partnerships with customers, creating new value streams and synergies for both them and for us as a utility.

Deploying New Technologies to Increase Efficiency

Embracing technology to leverage new and existing infrastructure, increase flexibility and work efficiently — both in our company and across regions and markets — is crucial. PGE is deploying innovative technologies across all areas of our business.

For example, PGE is bringing almost five-hundred megawatts of battery storage capacity online in 2024 and 2025, making our system more reliable and reducing power cost variability, especially during the hottest and coldest times of the year. These resources work in concert with West-wide markets and our growing fleet of wind, solar, and thermal resources in Oregon, Washington, and Montana.

PGE is deploying Smart Wire technologies as part of our grid modernization work to better control and manage power flows across our transmission and distribution system. These and other Grid Enhancing Technologies are unlocking significant capacity and improving power quality and reliability.

Machine learning algorithms analyze historical data, weather patterns, and other factors to improve load forecasting. We are using AI to enhance our predictive maintenance programs, reducing unplanned outages and extending equipment performance. One new AI program has achieved a twelvefold reduction in cycle times for engineering design reviews.

Embracing and adopting new technologies across our entire business underpins PGE’s ability to keep operations and maintenance costs increases below inflation and will help us keep O&M costs flat moving forward.

Making the Most of Local, State, and Federal Partnerships

In recent years, PGE has secured and contracted major grant support and tax credits that accelerate the pace of deployment and lower the cost of new technologies and renewable energy projects — savings that are directly passed on to customers.

One example is our collaboration with Nvidia and Utilidata on a grant-supported project to leverage GPUs and advanced algorithms across our network of smart meters. We are also participating in a two-hundred-fifty-million-dollar Grid Resilience and Innovation Program grant with the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs to increase capacity on the Bethel-Round Butte transmission line, a crucial artery in the western transmission system.

In the heart of the “Silicon Forest,” Oregon’s global center for semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing, PGE partnered with city leaders and industry to complete the Hillsboro Reliability Project, upgrading substations and transmission infrastructure to power high-tech expansion, next generation data center processing, and community development.

Leveraging Innovative Customer Programs

Customers are at the center of everything we do. Once, customers were simply consumers of energy. That’s changing rapidly. Today, customers are becoming full energy partners through cost-effective energy use, as well as storing, producing, and sending power back to the grid. This new capacity and energy orchestration contributes to West-wide regulating reserves, local grid reliability, and cost savings.

Most electric utilities have effective programs like PGE’s Peak Time Rebate, Smart Thermostat, and Time of Day demand-response programs that let customers shift energy use outside of peak times. These programs are effective and yet are largely individualized or manual.

At PGE, we are developing programs that are connected, dynamic, and automated at scale, using technology and incorporating real-time market data, weather and usage patterns, to deliver significantly greater value.

With integrated distributed energy resources — whether rooftop solar, electric vehicles, battery storage, or dispatchable standby generation — PGE projects that by 2030, its Virtual Power Plant will be capable of shifting as much as twenty-five percent of energy demand away from peak usage periods.

In short, electric companies are transforming at a pace that will accelerate in the years ahead. Building on the foundation of customer service and consistent operational execution, while prioritizing innovation is essential to lasting energy affordability.