26% Renewable Energy? No Longer Unthinkable

CUB has pushed for clean, renewable electricity for decades. While we may not have always been in the majority, we were on the right side of history.

Here are just a few of the things that were said in 2007 when CUB and a variety of Oregon community groups were pushing the legislature to adopt a goal of 25% renewables added to the grid by 2025:

• “There is no moral or economic justification for placing such a burden on Oregon electric ratepayers.”
• “[This] will force every ratepayer to pay more for electricity”
• “[It will have an] adverse impact on reliability and stability of the grid”

I thought about this recently when the US Energy Information Administration published its forecast of energy supply and projected that renewables would supply 26% of our electricity in 2024. 

Back in 2007, CUB was one of the groups that advocated for the Oregon Renewable Portfolio Standard. This legislation set a goal of serving 25% of Oregon’s electricity with renewables by 2025.  At the time, it gave Oregon the third strongest renewable requirement in the country after Minnesota and Maine.  As 2025 approaches, not only will Oregon meet this goal, but the entire country is expected to achieve this goal.

Meeting this standard is not a surprise to many of us who follow energy development. But back in 2007 when Oregon established this requirement, many predicted we would not be successful. We were told that it would cost ratepayers too much. That it would destabilize the grid and interfere with the market. That it should be voluntary. That it would transfer billions of dollars from residential customers to politically powerful power producers, utilities, and various non-profit organizations.

We were told it was a pie-in-the-sky proposal that should wait for more time to keep studying the issue.

But CUB kept pushing for more clean electricity and strong renewable standards.

This is similar to the reaction when we proposed the 2016 bill, Coal-to-Clean, that required Oregon to remove coal generation by 2030. And when community advocates promoted the 2021 bill, 100% Clean Electricity, to require 100% clean electricity by 2040. Every proposal to align energy policy with the future, rather than the past, is attacked and criticized. 

But these gloom-and-doom predictions fail. The 25% renewable standard did not lead to these problems. From the time the bill passed through 2020, Portland General Electric’s residential bills increased by less than the rate of inflation. Electric bills have increased since 2020, but it is not due to the cost of renewables. 

Ironically, much of the recent increase is caused by fossil fuels – the increased cost of coal and natural gas used to generate electricity. In fact, these fossil fuel increases would have caused even larger rate increases, if the 25% renewable standard had not passed in 2007. 

No doubt, we will hear these kinds of messages as we move forward and consider how to further reduce carbon emissions such as this year’s focus on building emissions. But it is good to remember that it was only a few years ago that serving load with 25% renewable energy by 2025 was considered a bold policy. Oregon was a leader in enacting it.

Today 25% renewable energy is non-controversial. In fact, it simply represents America’s electric supply.

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