VIDEO: Oregon Regulators Weigh in on Future of Pacific Power Coal Plants

Yesterday Oregon utility regulators got their first look at Pacific Power’s long-term plan for electricity, which leans heavily on coal power in the coming years.

The Oregon Public Utility Commission held a public hearing on the utility’s Integrated Resource Plan, which maps out where more than 500,000 Oregon families and businesses will get their electricity in the coming years.

In the plan, Pacific Power proposed fairly modest early retirements of its Wyoming and Utah coal plants despite the fact that the company’s own analysis showed that more than half its coal fleet could be retired early and replaced it with clean energy at a cost savings to its customers. PUC commissioners had pointed questions about the modeling and assumptions the company used in its analysis. The company is also getting pressure from Wyoming regulators and elected officials to keep the coal plants running longer.

The meeting was held at Oregon PUC headquarters in Salem, yesterday, December 17. The nearly 2-hour meeting can be viewed in the video below. You can skip around to hear different presentations, charts, questions and answers; and you may need to turn your volume up.