Updates on State Energy Projects
The Future of Oregon’s Energy Landscape
The primary purpose of the Biennial Energy Report is to inform local, state, regional, and federal energy policy development, energy planning, and energy investments, and to identify opportunities to further the state’s energy policies.
This section also provides a short introduction to a new Oregon Energy Security Plan, published by ODOE in September 2024. The plan identifies risks to electricity, liquid fuel, and natural gas/propane systems, and proposes ways to mitigate those risks.
Additionally, the Oregon Legislature tasked ODOE with developing a new Oregon Energy Strategy. That work is well underway, and the agency will present a final report on the project in November 2025.
Seismic Population Islands in Oregon: ODOE will continue to review and update the Energy Security Plan, including collecting and analyzing additional data and considering new threats and risks that emerge to Oregon’s energy systems.
The Oregon Energy Security Plan
The Oregon Energy Security Plan presents an overview of the state’s energy infrastructure, quantifies the threats and hazards that could cause energy insecurity, and proposes mitigation measures that the state and its partners can implement to reduce risk.
In September 2024, the Oregon Department of Energy published the Oregon Energy Security Plan. The plan was developed in collaboration with the Oregon Public Utility Commission and other government and private sector partners.
The Oregon Energy Security Plan meets the requirements for a State Energy Security Plan as laid out in the 2021 federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and in Oregon’s Senate Bill 1567 (2022), which in addition to meeting the federal requirements, directs ODOE to evaluate strategies to increase geographic diversity of fuel storage throughout the state.
ODOE will continue to review and update this Energy Security Plan, including collecting and analyzing additional data and considering new threats and risks that emerge to Oregon’s energy systems.
Oregon’s Energy Strategy
The Oregon Legislature directed ODOE, through House Bill 3630, to develop an Oregon Energy Strategy. The bill requires the strategy to evaluate pathways, focusing on the most affordable solutions, to meet state energy policy and greenhouse gas objectives:
80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across the economy by 2050
100% clean electricity by 2040 for the state’s biggest electric utilities
90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for natural gas, liquid fuels, and propane by 2050
ODOE has since embarked on development of the Oregon Energy Strategy. This data-driven process has focused on assessing different options to meet Oregon’s energy and climate objectives.
The energy strategy will evaluate the costs and benefits of different pathways and develop policy recommendations. Those could be legislative or policy actions, programs, funding, or recommendations on areas requiring further study.