Electric companies are spending billions of dollars every year on lawsuits filed against them. Are we paying higher rates because consumption is rising, or because we have to pay for the jury verdicts and settlements?

 

PgE also has the money to be buying up smaller non municipal water and wastewater treatment plants/distribution systems.

 

There is a reason they set up in areas to take advantage of cheap hydropower. At least the aluminum smelters provided a good number of jobs.

 

And now it's no longer cheap. Between the data centers and large scale Bitcoin miners the demand has grown exponentially and they get big discounts as well. Rates are up about 50% for residential customers since 2019.

Here's some marketing for a bitcoin mining datacenter located in Oregon. Notice how they quote rates starting as low as $0.04/kWh.

"Quotecolo is a leading US-based colocation provider offering scalable, secure, and affordable hosting solutions for your Bitcoin mining hardware in Oregon’s thriving data center ecosystem."

"Oregon’s power grid is predominantly supplied by clean hydroelectric energy from the Columbia River Basin, providing miners with some of the most affordable and environmentally sustainable electricity in North America. With electricity costs representing 70-80% of mining operational expenses, Oregon’s rates starting as low as $0.04/kWh give miners a significant competitive edge."

And it's not just Oregon.

"In Texas, regular homeowners paid around 14.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2023, while crypto miners paid as little as 2.5 cents. Similar patterns appear in New York (residents: 22.3 cents; miners: 3 cents), Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas."

I couldn't find a chart for Oregon but it's the same here as it is across the country. Residential customers get a price increase while bitcoin miners get steep discounts. Data Centers fall under Industrial so they're paying about half of what residential customers pay. It makes absolutely no sense at all. I didn't realize how big of a discount they were getting. Now that I do it fills me with rage. Especially knowing that there are many struggling families out there that are going without in order to pay the electricity increases. It might not seem like much but a single mom living payday to payday and chronically broke, $20 a month is a big deal. Who's looking out for them?

Instead of raising residential rates, get rid of the discounts. We're not benefitting from bitcoin mining operations and all those jobs the large companies with data centers said would be created have not materialized and they won't. Then there is the fact that many of these mining operations are foreign controlled including some with Chinese ownership.

 

It's about time. There is no reason that we should be paying higher energy costs because of these large companies. They have plenty of money and should have been paying higher rates years ago to offset the costs to upgrade the grid to accommodate their power needs instead of those costs being passed onto us.

Amazon Mkt Cap $2.34 trillion 2024 Net profit $30.43 billion
Google Mkt Cap $2.99 trillion 2024 Net profit $73.80 billion
Microsoft Mkt Cap $3.83 trillion 2024 Net profit $88.14 billion


The Oregon POWER Act (HB 3546) aims to hold large energy users accountable for their energy consumption, particularly targeting data centers and cryptocurrency businesses. It requires state regulators to create policies that ensure these large users pay for their own energy needs, thereby protecting Oregon households from bearing the costs associated with these facilities. The act also directs electric companies to assign the costs of serving large energy use facilities to those facilities, mitigating risks to other electricity consumers. Overall, the POWER Act is designed to safeguard residential and small business ratepayers from rising energy costs due to the demands of large energy users.

"Oregon currently has 131 of these centers, and they all use large amounts of electricity which strains the power grid, and your wallet.
But how much electricity are these centers actually using?
To add context, a smaller, 30-megawatt data center will use as much electricity as the city of Ashland. Larger AI data centers, using around 250 megawatts, are equivalent to the usage of the city of Eugene.
The energy used by these centers comes at a cost, but the bill has been shared with all of us."

"Opposers of the bill, like the Data Center Coalition and Amazon Web Services, say they are concerned that by singling out the industry, data centers might decide to move and set up in other states, taking potential jobs with them."

“They have money, but they don’t want to use their money. They want to use the public’s money.”
The new bill, recently signed into law by Governor Kotek, aims to give financial power back to the community.

New law affecting data centers could lead to some Oregonians seeing lower electric bills

A new law could lead to some Oregonians seeing lower electric bills. FOX 12 Investigates has more on the power act, and the impact it could have on your wallet.

www.kptv.com

If we have 3 inches of snow and the wind is more then 30 m.p.h. thousands go down . P.G.E. is incompetent and should be a P.U.D. No investers.

 

HB3546 is a desperate attempt to divert blame for failed energy policies in our state. The reason Oregonians' electric bills have more than doubled is NOT because of data centers. It's because of misguided and wasteful "green energy" policies that forced PGE and other utilities to waste ratepayers' money on unreliable energy sources.

 

And I saw Elvis and D.B. Cooper pumping gas in Reno.

 

Both of these can be true. Misguided policies AND large users like data centers can BOTH cause strain on the system and our wallets. Unfortunately, just like this thread each side is making "their side", the politicians do as well. There can only be one cause... and of course it isn't the one that aligns with their party line and decades of policy behind it.

"Opposers of the bill, like the Data Center Coalition and Amazon Web Services, say they are concerned that by singling out the industry, data centers might decide to move and set up in other states, taking potential jobs with them."

This made me laugh if this is their main argument. There is an initial push of jobs for the construction of the facilities, but they are specifically designed to run with minimal operational support needs. A minimal number of basic, lower level technician jobs are the only thing that will be losing.

 

My power bill hit a new high of $550 for a couple months this summer. Finally said screw it. Did a DIY solar install. Should be able to eliminate the power company from my life moving forward. System should pay for it self in 4 years. That is with out price increases.