ODOE at 50: Planning Oregon’s Energy Future
2025 marks 50 years of Oregon Department of Energy public service. As we continue leading Oregon to a safe, equitable, clean, and sustainable future for the next 50 years (and beyond!), we’re taking time to look back and reflect on what got us here.
In 1975, the year ODOE was established by the Oregon Legislature, the Office of Energy Research in Planning for then-Governor Tom McCall wrote a report called Transition, calling it “A Book on Future Energy: Nuclear or Solar?”
This month, the Oregon Department of Energy was proud to release the Oregon Energy Strategy – a first-of-its-kind report that identifies pathways, policies, and recommended actions Oregon can take to meet the state’s clean energy policy objectives while addressing energy affordability and reliability. The energy strategy identifies five pathways to achieve energy policy objectives; evaluates the benefits and challenges of those pathways; and considers how different choices can affect energy costs for Oregon households, air quality and public health, and jobs and the economy. Dive in to learn more!
While the energy strategy is the first time the state has developed overarching pathways and policies for meeting Oregon’s energy policy objectives, the state has long history of energy planning and policymaking dating back to the early days of ODOE.
In 1975, the year ODOE was established by the Oregon Legislature, the Office of Energy Research in Planning for then-Governor Tom McCall wrote a report called Transition, calling it “A Book on Future Energy: Nuclear or Solar?” In a 1977 reprint of Transition, Governor McCall added an introduction, in which he said “Transition is a bold document. It challenges the people of this state to create their own future rather than having it arbitrarily imposed upon them.”
In the following decades, Oregon leaders developed bold energy policies and actions, and ODOE administered programs to support energy efficiency and renewable energy in Oregon homes, businesses, agriculture, public buildings, and others. In August, we shared a history of Oregon’s climate goals, including the Climate Protection Program at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality as well as HB 2021, which established a target to have 100 percent clean electricity from Oregon’s largest utilities and all electricity service suppliers by 2040.
Energy planning over the years has essentially asked the same question: How do we ensure Oregon has the energy it needs while protecting the environment and public health, addressing affordability and reliability, and ensuring all Oregonians can benefit from a clean energy future? The energy sector is consistently evolving as new technologies emerge, demand grows and shifts, and climate change takes a toll. Planning also happens at several levels – utilities, communities, states, regions, nationwide – and in each home and business.
In 1980, the Northwest Power Act authorized Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana to develop a regional power plan that balances the region’s environmental and energy needs. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council manages development of that plan with robust public engagement, and updates it every five years – most recently in 2021. Two Oregon representatives serve as Council members: Margie Hoffmann and Chuck Sams.
When it comes to energy being delivered directly to homes and businesses, Oregon utilities develop integrated resource plans, or IRPs, which outline utility plans for meeting future energy needs for their customers. They are developed in a way to be least-cost and least-risk to ratepayers.
Individual households also make their own energy plans, investing in efficient technology and appliances, adding solar on rooftops, installing battery storage systems, or making the switch to an electric vehicle. In Oregon, large electric utilities Portland General Electric and Pacific Power have two of the most successful opt-in green energy programs in the nation.
In Governor McCall’s 1977 introduction to Transition, he said the report “outlined a policy encouraging Oregonians to achieve immediate conservation and initiate the transition to a solar-based energy system and society. It hit like a thunderclap.”
Fifty years later, we hope our new Oregon Energy Strategy hits like a thunderclap – in a good way – and that Oregonians see themselves in our clean energy future. We are once again – or perhaps still – in an energy transition. The Oregon Energy Strategy will help chart the course, and ODOE is ready to lead the way!