Oregon Bills Would Advance Microgrids by Creating Resiliency Corridors and Boosting Community Powers

In response to power outages caused by climate-change related natural disasters such as wildfires and extreme weather in Oregon, a coalition of stakeholders seeks to make it easier to deploy microgrids with two bills—HB 2065 and HB 2066– now in the state legislature.

In addition to paving the way for microgrids to provide resilience, the bills aim to advance local energy production and energy storage to insulate communities from rising costs due to load growth, according to Sustainable Northwest.

Storms and wildfire take their toll on Oregon

Energy resilience is a growing challenge for Oregon. Although Texas captured worldwide attention in February 2021 after a devastating storm crippled the state’s power system, the Northwest struggled with similar issues. Portland at the same time experienced power outages because of severe weather that left about 200,000 customers in the dark, some for several days.

Wildfires also pose outage risks. In response to increasing numbers of wildfires in the state, utilities Portland General and PacifiCorp have begun implementing public safety power shutoffs.

To help get more microgrids built, a coalition called Making Energy Work–which includes municipalities, nonprofits, independent renewable energy suppliers, tribes, farmers, ranchers and state agencies in the Pacific Northwest–helped develop HB 2065 and 2066.

Communities want to own microgrids

“What we're seeing is that consumers and communities are more and more interested in owning their own microgrids and having more say,” said Kevin Wright, co-founder and president at ProtoGen Energy—which develops clean energy projects—during an interview at the Oregon Solar and Storage Industries Association (OSSIA) conference in Portland May 15.

The utility business model stands in the way of allowing communities to deploy and own their own microgrids, he said. Interconnection queues often delay projects by years. 

The main challenges are rules and regulations pertaining to how communities and developers can plan projects, implement interconnection studies and operate microgrids, he said.

The biggest hurdle is that Oregon’s laws and regulations related to microgrids are unclear,  according to Sustainable Northwest, which supports community-led clean energy projects.

“There is little guidance on who can develop, own and operate microgrids. There is also a lack of capacity, expertise and funding in communities to plan for and build them,” the organization said.

Working with Sustainable Northwest and OSSIA, ProtoGen helped develop the bills.

Bill would allow third-party engineers to do interconnection studies

HB 2065 would allow third-party engineers representing communities to conduct studies about interconnection. The goal is to overcome bottlenecks in the energy planning process and help projects get built.

Under HB 2066, communities could designate themselves as resiliency corridors. The bill would compel utilities to work with them as technical partners, Wright said.

In addition, HB 2066 would require the Oregon Public Utility Commission to establish legal clarity and compensation mechanisms to support community microgrids. It would also enable islanding capabilities for front-of-meter community microgrids and give frontline community emergency management teams more decision making power.

ProtoGen Energy is now working to create a resiliency corridor for a community in the Wallowa Mountains that’s susceptible to wildfires and experiences outages because it’s located at the end of a utility line, Wright said.

Challenges to deploying microgrids in Oregon

In addition to the need for regulatory clarity about who can develop, own and manage microgrids, Oregon needs long-term financing mechanisms to finance projects, Sustainable Northwest said.

Another challenge is how utilities compensate local energy developers. Payments are artificially low for small-scale renewable energy, Renewable Northwest siad.

HB 2066 would require utilities to pay the real value of adding local clean energy to the grid.

Two Oregon microgrids provide resilience

Two projects from the Oregon Military Department are examples of how microgrids can create resilience to the surrounding community. The two projects are up and running with the help of state incentives and the local utility,

The Oregon Military Department deployed a microgrid that can provide power for up to 14 days during outages and serve as a community resource during disasters, such as earthquakes, fires and storms. It received more than $100,000 in incentives from Energy Trust of Oregon,

In summer 2023, Portland General Electric (PGE) partnered with the Oregon Military Department to deploy a microgrid at the Anderson Readiness Center in Salem. PGE owns and operates a 500-kW/1-MWh battery that will be part of the microgrid. The Oregon Military Department installed 268 kW of solar photovoltaics at the Anderson Readiness Center.

While many challenges to microgrid deployment exist in Oregon and the northwest, there’s some good news about the technology across the U.S., said Wright.

There’s a higher level of awareness about the need for resilience and microgrids, he said. “That's a big part of this change that's happening. It's causing the utility business model to evolve. It's causing lawmakers to become engaged. The cost savings that have occurred with solar and energy storage is a big driver of that as well,” Wright said.