PacifiCorp has brought a Montana wind farm into service, just as Oregon regulators investigate the company’s addition of the resource to help Facebook meets its green ambitions.
The 239.9-megawatt Pryor Mountain wind farm will be added to
rates this week, Portland-based PacifiCorp said in a filing Monday with the
Oregon Public Utility Commission.
A smaller wind repowering project also went online recently
and will be folded into rates. Together, the projects will add 99 cents per
month to the average residential customer’s bill, PacifiCorp said.
Regulators late last year found the company’s investment in
the Montana wind farm to be prudent. While it could cost ratepayers in the short-term
most years, PacifiCorp projects the wind farm should provide a long-term net
benefit of at least $57 million.
Pryor Mountain has the attention of the Oregon PUC for
another reason these days, however.
PacifiCorp bought the project outside normal competitive
bidding rules and brought it online in order to provide renewable energy
certificates to Facebook. The social media giant likes to be able to point to
specific new projects that help it meet a goal of 100% clean energy for its
operations, including the giant Prineville data center complex in Central
Oregon.
The commission has raised questions about whether the Pryor
Mountain-Facebook arrangement is in the public interest under the fairly loose
regulatory mechanism PacifiCorp used, called Schedule 272, or whether more
extensive guidelines are needed.
In a February order, the commission capped the use of
Schedule 272, apparently putting at risk Facebook’s purchase of the RECs it
needs to declare itself 100% green in Oregon.
PacifiCorp and Facebook objected to the cap, and in an order
last week, the PUC set it aside. But the commission nevertheless asked staff to
deliver a recommendation for “appropriate limitation on an interim basis” for
Schedule 272 within 45 days.
In the same order, the commission formally opened an
investigation into Schedule 272.
“We expect the investigation into Schedule 272 to determine,
as a threshold matter, whether PacifiCorp’s use of this tariff to add a
resource to its portfolio for the express purpose of delivering the RECs from
that specific resource to a participating customer or customers is in the
public interest,” the order said.
