The Historic Shift Behind Oregon’s Schedule 96

How Oregon Made Data Center Cost Responsibility a Matter of Law

What Makes Oregon’s Schedule 96 Different

Oregon did not create America’s first data center tariff. It did something potentially more consequential by requiring utilities to separate large data center costs from everyone else’s bills. For years, utilities have created special rates and contracts for customers that use extraordinary amounts of electricity. More recently, regulators across the country have approved new large-load tariffs designed for data centers, advanced manufacturing facilities and other customers whose power needs can reshape the grid.

Oregon’s Schedule 96 is part of that broader movement. It is not the first data center tariff in the United States. In fact, the Oregon Public Utility Commission had already approved a similar large-load tariff for Pacific Power in 2024.[1]

What makes Oregon’s latest move historically significant is something different.

In 2025, Oregon put data center cost responsibility into state law. The POWER Act requires the state’s investor-owned utilities to place qualifying data centers and cryptocurrency facilities in a separate customer class, assign the costs of serving them to that class and protect other customers from unwarranted cost shifting.[2]

Schedule 96 is the first real-world implementation of that law.

Oregon made separating data center costs from ordinary customer bills a statewide

legal requirement and has now begun turning that requirement into actual rates.

Oregon Changed Data Center Rates From a Utility Choice to a Legal Requirement

Large-load tariffs have traditionally been developed utility by utility. A power company identifies a risk, proposes new service terms and asks its regulator to approve them.

Oregon’s POWER Act changes that sequence. The law directs the Public Utility Commission to create a separate and distinct service classification for large energy-use facilities served by investor-owned utilities. That class must have its own tariff schedule. The law also says the costs of serving the class must be allocated proportionally to it or assigned directly to the customer that created them.[2]

In simple terms, Oregon is no longer asking whether large data centers should have a separate rate structure. State law says they must.

The requirement applies to data centers and cryptocurrency facilities with a contracted capacity of more than 20 megawatts. It covers Oregon’s investor-owned utilities, including Portland General Electric, Pacific Power and Idaho Power, when they serve qualifying facilities.[2]

That statewide mandate is what differentiates Oregon. It moves the principle that data centers should pay their own way beyond an individual tariff proceeding and embeds it in the state’s utility policy.

Why Oregon Acted as Data Center Power Demand Accelerated

The timing is not accidental. Data centers are becoming one of the most consequential sources of new electricity demand. The International Energy Agency projects that global data center electricity use will more than double by 2030 to approximately 945 terawatt-hours. In the United States, data centers are expected to account for nearly half of electricity demand growth through the end of the decade.[3]

A large data center may require new substations, transmission capacity, distribution equipment, generation resources and long-term energy purchases. Those investments may begin years before the customer reaches its full load. If the project is delayed, downsized or abandoned, the utility can be left with infrastructure that was built for demand that never arrived. Without clear protections, those costs can move outward into the rates paid by households and other businesses.

The POWER Act addresses that risk directly. Rather than waiting for cost shifting to appear years later in a rate case, Oregon requires utilities and regulators to identify the responsibility of large energy users before major investments are made.

What PGE’s Schedule 96 Actually Requires

In May 2026, the Oregon Public Utility Commission approved Schedule 96 for large data centers and other large-load customers served by Portland General Electric. The updated rates took effect July 8, 2026.[4]

Schedule 96 gives these customers their own rate class and makes several financial obligations more explicit. Large-load customers must pay for the distribution infrastructure required to serve their facilities. Minimum demand charges require them to pay for 90 percent of their requested generation and transmission capacity, even when they use less electricity than planned. Contract lengths begin at 10 years and can extend to 30 years for the largest loads.[4]

Exit fees provide another layer of protection. A customer that leaves the system early may remain responsible for minimum charges and the value of distribution assets built specifically for its project. These provisions address a basic utility problem. Infrastructure cannot simply disappear when a customer changes its business plan.

As a result, Schedule 96 does more than determine the price of electricity. It assigns responsibility for the financial commitments made to deliver it.

The First Results Make Cost Causation Visible

The approved changes increased rates for PGE data center customers by an average of 29 percent. At the same time, residential rates decreased by an average of 1.3 percent, commercial rates by 2.1 percent and other industrial rates by 1.4 percent. A typical residential customer using 780 kilowatt-hours per month is expected to save approximately $1.91.[5]

Those numbers make Oregon’s policy visible in a way that legislative language cannot.

Costs previously spread across multiple customer classes are being reassigned to the class driving more of the system’s recent growth. In essence, the bill is beginning to show who created the need for the investment.

The change is not based on the assumption that every grid expense can be traced to a single data center. Electric systems are shared systems. However, Oregon’s framework requires a more deliberate accounting of how rapid load growth affects generation, transmission, distribution and power-supply costs.

That's cost causation made visible.

Clean Energy is Part of the Cost of Connecting

Oregon’s approach also goes beyond infrastructure expenses. Before a large data center connects, PGE must determine whether serving the load would interfere with the utility’s ability to meet Oregon’s clean electricity requirements. When sufficient compliant resources are not available, the customer may have to wait or enter a special contract to fund the necessary clean energy resources.[1]

Furthermore, Schedule 96 customers with at least 100 megawatts of allocated system capacity must pay an additional one-cent-per-kilowatt-hour surcharge. The revenue supports programs intended to reduce residential costs and help address energy burdens for lower-income households.[1]

This makes the framework unusually comprehensive. A data center’s responsibility is not limited to the substation or distribution line outside the facility. It also includes the energy resources, emissions obligations and broader system effects associated with serving the load.

Growth Is Still Welcome, but the Subsidy Is Not Assumed

Oregon’s policy is not a ban on data centers. Nor does it assume that large technology investments bring no public benefit. Data centers can create construction activity, capital investment, tax revenue and demand for new energy infrastructure. Utilities may also benefit from customers that provide substantial and predictable long-term revenue.

The POWER Act draws a line between welcoming that investment and asking existing customers to finance it. The law’s underlying argument is straightforward. Economic development does not require households and small businesses to become silent investors in privately driven grid expansion.

Most importantly, Oregon is creating clearer expectations before projects connect.

That clarity may make projects more expensive, but it also makes the rules more predictable.

Schedule 96 Turns a Historic Law Into a Systems Challenge

Passing the POWER Act was the policy milestone. Schedule 96 is where that policy begins to meet operational reality. A separate customer class must become billing logic.

Every customer commitment, capacity reservation, system upgrade and charge must connect to a defensible record. When those connections fail, utilities face billing disputes, manual workarounds, inconsistent reporting and customer confusion.

That's where Schedule 96 becomes more than a regulatory story. It becomes a utility modernization story. Tamazari helps utilities connect the systems, data, operations and people required to turn regulatory intent into reliable execution. Because a historic policy only delivers its intended protection when the systems behind it work.

Footnotes

[1] Oregon Public Utility Commission, “Oregon PUC Approves New Rate Structure to Protect Customers Amid Rapid Data Center Growth,” May 2026.https://www.oregon.gov/puc/news-events/Documents/PR-202609.pdf

[2] Oregon Legislative Assembly, House Bill 3546, Protecting Oregonians With Energy Responsibility Act, 2025.https://apps.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/HB3546

[3] International Energy Agency, “AI Is Set to Drive Surging Electricity Demand From Data Centres,” April 2025.https://www.iea.org/news/ai-is-set-to-drive-surging-electricity-demand-from-data-centres-while-offering-the-potential-to-transform-how-the-energy-sector-works

[4] Oregon Department of Energy, “POWER Act Implementation,” June 26, 2026.https://www.oregon.gov/energy/get-involved/Documents/01-Nolan-Moser-Bret-Stevens-DCAC.pdf

[5] Oregon Public Utility Commission, “PUC Approves PGE Rate Updates Resulting in Higher Bills for Data Centers, Lower Bills for Other Customers,” July 7, 2026.https://www.oregon.gov/puc/news-events/Documents/PR-202615.pdf

[6] Smart Electric Power Alliance, “U.S. Data Center Gold Rush Drives Surge in New Utility Tariffs,” 2026.https://sepapower.org/knowledge/u-s-data-center-gold-rush-drives-surge-in-new-utility-tariffs/