In a rare departure from the norm, one of the three monopoly electric utilities operating in Oregon is asking state regulators for permission to lower rates for residential customers in 2026.
The reduction, though small at less than 1%, is the result of Idaho Power’s break with coal, according to recent filings with the Oregon Public Utilities Commission. The utility’s roughly 14,000 residential customers who live in eastern Oregon will likely save less than a dollar a month. Idaho Power’s request could be on the commission’s agenda in early December, according to Kandi Young, a commission spokesperson.
It’s the result of the company saving $1.3 million by ceasing operations of a coal-burning power plant in Nevada, and through lower regulatory costs since a Boardman coal plant it co-owned with Portland General Electric in eastern Oregon was fully decommissioned in recent years, the filings explain.
Idaho Power plans to end coal-burning operations at the last coal plant it owns, along with PacifiCorp, in Wyoming by 2030, and to convert the facility to burning natural gas. The company has a goal to reach a 100% “clean energy” portfolio for power by 2045, though for now that involves natural gas — almost entirely methane gas, a powerful heat-warming greenhouse gas.
“Idaho Power has a detailed resource planning process that continually seeks the least-cost, least-risk resources to serve our customers,” Jordan Rodriguez, a company spokesperson, said in an email.
The cost savings from ditching coal come as President Donald Trump and his administration fight to keep coal-burning power plants running past dates many utilities had set for decommissioning them.
Experts have found coal power is significantly more expensive than alternative energy sources. And because so many coal plants in the U.S. are more than 50 years old, reviving them will needlessly cost ratepayers more than they need to pay for power. Coal is also among the primary sources of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to the International Energy Agency.
In October, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced a $625 million investment “to expand and reinvigorate America’s coal industry,” which includes $350 million in funding to recommission or modernize existing coal-fired power plants. But in the last four years, more than 100 such plants have closed because they’re not cost-effective to operate anymore, according to researchers at the Ohio-based nonprofit Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis.
Electricity prices have risen across the U.S. in recent years — about 13% on average since 2022, according to the Energy Information Administration — in part due to the rise of massive new users like data centers, artificial intelligence processors and bitcoin mining, as well as growing electrification across sectors. But costs have gone up more steeply in several states that rely heavily on coal, including Kentucky and West Virginia. Electricity rates in West Virginia, where coal powers more than 80% of consumed electricity, are up nearly 25% since 2022.
Rising rates
Oregon customers of monopoly electric utilities have also experienced higher-than-average rate hikes in recent years.
Rates for residential customers of Pacific Power and Portland General Electric are up about 50% since 2020.
Officials from both companies blame rising inflation, building infrastructure for more clean energy generation and storage, increasing costs to buy power, higher insurance costs and new customer demand. Power demand from large industrial customers, such as new data centers, is up more than 34% in the last five years, while residential demand is up 5%.
“It’s not very common for a utility to request a decrease in rates, but it does happen occasionally,” said Charlotte Shuff, a spokesperson for the Citizens’ Utility Board, a watchdog group established by Oregon voters in 1984 to represent the interests of utility consumers.
“What’s more common is a rate decrease after a utility requests an increase,” Shuff said.
Idaho Power raised rates on Oregonians in 2025 for the first time since 2011. It initially asked the state’s Public Utilities Commission for permission to raise rates 27%, but was ultimately allowed a 4% increase. The company recently asked Idaho regulators to allow it to raise rates 17% on Gem State customers in 2026 for infrastructure upgrades, new energy storage facilities and wildfire prevention.
In its latest request to Oregon’s Public Utilities Commission to lower rates for Oregonians, the company said despite its savings, it will need to spend more than $500,000 on wildfire prevention work in the state in the year ahead.
By Alex Baumhardt of news partner Oregon Capital Chronicle
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