Portland General Electric touts demolition of final coal plant, reduced outage and restoration times in year-end review

A letter issued last week by Maria Pope, president and CEO of Portland General Electric (PGE), highlighted achievements the company made in 2022 and its priorities for 2023, which included more wide-scale clean energy, reliability updates, and customer energy usage management tools.

Reportedly, the company managed to reduce outage times by more than 1.3 million minutes – or more than 20,000 hours – by deploying upgrades and system investments year-round. Figures were compared to 2021 times. Deployments included a new Integrated Operations Center and its insight capabilities to prevent outages, the installation of more than 50 weather stations to predict and prepare for weather conditions, and new investments in technologies such as artificial intelligence-driven cameras capable of detecting wildfires and other issues.

PGE also oversaw the demolition of Oregon’s last coal facility last year and brought online the Clearwater Wind Project and Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facility instead. Wheatridge notably represented the first North American facility to co-locate wind and solar generation with battery storage.

“Our journey to decarbonization – an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – will not be easy,” Pope said. “With the support and participation of customers, communities, public officials, and businesses, we are already well on our way. We are committed to making the critical investments needed to maintain reliability, increase resiliency, and give customers tools to manage energy costs.”

That moves things to questions of the future. According to Pope, investments will focus on resiliency and technology upgrades that will support vehicle electrification efforts, rooftop solar and home battery storage, purchases and construction of clean generation facilities, large-scale battery storage, as well as new storm and wildfire prevention measures. On the customer side, PGE will also build up programs to help customers manage their own energy usage – think smart thermostats and Peak Time Rebates. It intends to pursue federal funds and tax credits, as well as energy efficiency programs, to reduce customer costs and expand an income-qualified bill discount program.