| A Renewable Portfolio Standard for Oregon |
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Oregon has passed a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that will require the largest utilities in Oregon to provide 25 percent of their retail sales of electricity from newer, clean, renewable sources of energy in 2025. Smaller utilities will have similar, but lesser, obligations. Details on the renewable portfolio standard can be found on this page.
ODOE RPS Rulemaking & Operation
Oregon PUC Rulemaking Information
Download the legislation establishing Oregon's RPS.
Download a summary of Oregon's RPS.
Additional background and information on the history of Oregon's RPS can be found below.
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| Renewable Energy Working Group |
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A special task force formed by the Governor has been meeting since the beginning of 2006 to work on a range of issues related to renewable energy in Oregon. This group, the Renewable Energy Work Group (REWG), was largely focused on the RPS for nearly nine months. The deliberations of this group formed the basis for the Governor’s proposed RPS legislation. Starting with a few key concepts, this group slowly expanded its debate to cover nearly all aspects of how an RPS policy might work in Oregon. If you want to follow the historical development of key provisions of the proposed RPS you can listen to the meetings and follow the trail of documents by looking at the REWG meeting archive site.
By the end of 2006 the REWG had talked through most of the key areas related to the proposed RPS. There are areas where the REWG did find general agreement, and areas where the group agreed to disagree. This “RPS Status Report ” document provides a brief synopsis of the debate about the RPS in the REWG over the past months.
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| RPS Bill Legislative History |
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Time line
- Original RPS "placeholder" bill = SB 373
- SB 373 replaced with new "placeholder" bill created during session = SB 838 (original bill)
- The detailed RPS language was amended into SB 838 and voted out of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources committee as the first "full" version of the RPS bill, SB 838A.
- Senate version of RPS bill (SB 838A) voted on and passed on to the House for consideration (Passed 4-10-07; 20 Yes, 10 No).
- SB 838A passed out of the House Energy and Environment Commitee on May 1, 2007 (5-4 vote) with the following amendments, and the latest version of the RPS bill is now SB 838B.
- Upon reaching the House floor, the RPS bill (SB 838B) was "re-referred" back to the House Energy and Environment committee where additional amendments were passed on May 16, 2007. This action resulted in a new RPS bill being printed that reflects those later amendments.
- SB838C passed out of the House (Passed 5-22-07; 40 Yes, 19 No) and referred back to Senate for concurrence.
- Senate voted for concurrence with the House changes (Passed 5-25-07 22 Yes - 6 No).SB838C referred to the Governor for signature.
- Enrolled version of RPS Bill printed in preparation for Governor's signature. This is the final printed version of the bill.
- Governor signs SB838C on June 6th, 2007.
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| More on Renew. Portfolio Std. |
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If you want to learn more about renewable portfolio standards a good place to start is with the presentation to the REWG on RPS by Dr. Ryan Wiser of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. These two presentations, one on RPS structure and one on RPS cost issues are an excellent and current overview. If you want a quick but detailed overview of what other states have done with RPS policy, you can skim this matrix prepared by REWG staff. If you want to read detailed reports and analyses on RPS you can download any of a number of the documents assembled for the REWG in this RPS bibliography collection. Finally, here is a link to an RPS fact sheet by the US Environmental Protection Agency entitled: Renewable Portfolio Standards: An Effective Policy to Support Clean Energy Supply.
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