Earlier this month, the Oregon Department of Energy released its first-ever comprehensive state Energy Strategy, a sweeping, data-driven roadmap showing how Oregon can meet its climate and clean energy goals while strengthening reliability and lowering costs. Climate Solutions was deeply involved in this years-long effort along with Tribes, local governments, community-based organizations, utilities, clean tech businesses, ratepayer advocates, and many others.

Oregon already has a strong foundation of clean energy laws. The Strategy doesn’t reinvent that vision; rather, it provides a clear, actionable roadmap to deliver on it. The conclusion is clear: Oregon can power its future with clean energy more affordably and more reliably than business as usual.

And the state is acting. Last week, Governor Tina Kotek signed a new Executive Order that begins implementing several of the Strategy’s high-impact recommendations– an essential step forward at a time when federal climate leadership is receding.

This means Oregon now has both a clear plan and a clear directive to move decisively toward a clean, reliable, affordable energy future. 

Advancing the lowest-cost, most reliable path

The Strategy’s modeling tells a compelling story: electrification and energy efficiency consistently emerge as the lowest-cost pathways for Oregon households and businesses across transportation, buildings, and industry. Clean electricity, distributed resources like rooftop solar and batteries, and grid modernization strengthen reliability while keeping energy dollars circulating locally.

Building on these findings, the Executive Order will:

• Strengthen Oregon’s landmark Clean Fuels Program, helping school districts deploy more electric buses, enabling towns big and small to install public chargers, and expanding access to renewable diesel to clean up our air and existing fleets.
• Accelerate the strategic electrification of buildings and vehicles to reduce pollution while saving families and businesses money.
• Expand energy storage, enhancing grid resilience, and increasing transmission capacity to keep electricity affordable and dependable for every Oregonian. 

Every credible analysis, including ODOE’s, confirms that reliability risks come from delay, not from clean energy. Renewables, storage, and demand flexibility can meet Oregon’s needs if they are deployed at the same pace alongside the necessary supporting infrastructure.

In short, a clean energy future isn’t just achievable: it’s the cheapest, most resilient option.

Oregon’s biggest reliability challenge is transmission, not generation

The Northwest has abundant clean energy resources ready to be deployed; what we lack is the infrastructure required to move that energy where and when it’s needed. 

The Strategy identifies transmission as the state’s most urgent reliability constraint. Expanding and upgrading transmission is the single most impactful step Oregon can take to maintain reliability, reduce long-term costs, and access diverse regional clean power resources.

More gas plants won’t fix a transmission bottleneck, just as they won’t solve energy affordability or help meet our climate commitments. But new transmission lines, upgraded corridors, and grid-enhancing technologies will.

Governor Kotek’s Executive Order is a significant step forward. It directs agencies to:

• Accelerate transmission planning and permitting,
• Improve siting processes to be more timely and community-responsive,
• Coordinate more deeply with regional partners, and
• Modernize energy data systems for more transparent, effective decision-making.

These steps will help Oregon unlock clean energy already waiting in the queue.

The risks of doubling down on gas

The Strategy underscores the financial and reliability risks of building new gas infrastructure. Expanding the gas system would lock Oregon households and businesses into decades of fuel-price volatility and saddle customers with paying for gas plants long after state law requires deep decarbonization. In other words, we’d be investing in infrastructure that will outlive its lawful usefulness, creating expensive stranded assets that ratepayers would still be on the hook for.

Oregon already has more than enough gas generation to serve as a backup while clean resources scale. Clean, flexible resources paired with a stronger grid provide reliable power at lower long-term cost, without tying Oregon to volatile, expensive global fossil fuel markets.

If the goal is reliability and affordability, the evidence is clear: clean wins. 

Clean energy is an economic engine

Oregon already leads in clean energy employment, with nearly 60,000 Oregonians working in that field. Implementing the Energy Strategy’s recommendations could support an additional 9,000-16,000 jobs by 2035, creating family-wage jobs in construction, manufacturing, and operations, many of them in rural communities.

And unlike fossil fuels, which Oregon imports, clean energy is produced here at home. That means stronger local economies, more stable household energy costs, and more resilient supply chains.

The blueprint is here. Now we need the will to act on it.

The Energy Strategy provides the roadmap. The Executive Order provides early momentum and a strong foundation. But sustained leadership from the Legislature, state agencies, the Governor, utilities, and other energy stakeholders will be essential to secure a resilient, affordable, and clean energy future for Oregon.

Oregon can secure a cleaner, reliable, and more affordable energy future. This month’s progress is a decisive step forward and a clear signal that Oregon will not wait for federal leadership to protect our communities, our economy, and our future.