Electric utilities in Washington and Oregon are turning to gas to meet rapid and growing energy demand from data centers, according to recent reports.
Two analyses from the Hood River-based conservation organization Columbia Riverkeeper and the Seattle-based think tank Sightline Institute show that a growing number of Northwest utility companies are spending on new gas-powered energy infrastructure or buying gas-powered energy from other states to power new demand from data centers.
In some counties, public utility districts are permitting gas-powered generators to provide data centers with backup energy, rather than waiting for them to get more power from the grid, and some data center companies are hooking up their own on-site gas generators. For their part, data center companies said they are investing in communities when they show up and working with utilities to find the cleanest energy possible.
The effect is that both Oregon and Washington are at risk of missing established emission reduction targets meant to help curb the impacts of global warming, researchers found. And a growing number of utilities are using booming data center demand to justify skirting climate rules in both states that mostly ban the build-out of new gas infrastructure, citing the need for regional energy reliability.
“In the absence of enough renewable energy supply, we’re seeing utilities turn more to gas in this situation,” said Audrey Leonard, staff attorney at Columbia Riverkeeper and one of the authors of the group’s report. “That is new, because up until the last few years we were making progress towards our clean energy targets in Washington and Oregon. We were really diversifying our clean energy mix, and it was always going to be a challenge — we definitely had work to do — but the way I characterize this is that data centers are turning that challenge into a crisis.”
Representatives for some of the biggest data center owners in the region said they are doing their part to connect to existing clean energy sources and invest in new renewable projects in both states, and that their presence is a boon for communities, not a burden.
“Amazon is committed to being a responsible neighbor in Oregon, where we’ve invested more than $60 billion since 2010 through infrastructure and jobs,” said Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokesperson. Callahan said the company’s data centers in the region are 10% more energy efficient than the industry average and that the company has invested in massive wind and solar projects across Oregon.
Morgan Babinec, a Microsoft spokesperson, emailed the Capital Chronicle a link to a company presentation espousing the company’s data center benefits in Washington. It notes that Microsoft has “committed to achieving 100% renewable energy coverage globally by 2025,” and that “our data centers in Washington are transitioning the backup generators to use a renewable biofuel that reduces net carbon emissions.”
Missing targets
Under a 2020 executive order from former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, state leaders and agencies have passed laws and policies meant to reduce Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions to 45% below 1990 levels by 2035 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
Until recently, the state was on track to meet those targets, according to 2023 Oregon Department of Energy modeling. But in October, department officials reported that given the massive rise in energy demand for data centers, along with Trump administration rollbacks of federal clean energy policies and fuel economy standards for cars, the state wouldn’t hit its 2035 goals until 2037.
To meet both Oregon and Washington’s climate goals — which include electrifying almost the entire transportation sector in both states by 2050 — the states also need to replace at least 65 million megawatt hours of existing coal and gas power generation with power generated by renewable sources such as wind and solar, the Columbia Riverkeeper researchers wrote.
Instead, federal energy officials have used data centers as a justification for keeping Washington’s largest coal-burning power plant running late last year, despite state laws requiring it to be shut down. And Puget Sound Energy, Washington’s largest utility, has contracted for six new gas turbines to be built at a new gas power plant at an undisclosed site in Washington, according to Sightline Institute.
Natural gas is almost entirely methane, a potent greenhouse gas that, when burned, emits carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide and methane are the main heat-trapping gases causing global warming.
