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SB 589 RTO Study Comments

Thank you for your interest in providing feedback to the Oregon Department of Energy pursuant to its implementation of Senate Bill 589.

Objective

Our objective is to gather and synthesize the range of perspectives on the benefits, costs, opportunities, challenges, and risks of Regional Transmission Organization formation that exist among a diverse range of Oregon stakeholders to inform the State Legislature and other interested parties.

Scoping Questions

To support participation we provided background materials on this topic (e.g., What is an RTO? How do they operate?) and other related issues on our website. In addition, we created the following one-pager that summarized this study, which included a timeline of key dates.

Comments received to scoping questions played a critical role in better understanding stakeholder perspectives on key issues related to RTO formation. There were three categories of questions with several topics per category.
  • Foundational Questions:
    • Legal barriers
    • Oregon-specific net benefits
    • Oregon retail customers
    • Overarching principles
  • Technical Questions:
    • Transmission rates
    • Transmission planning and operation
    • Renewables
    • Environmental impacts
    • Climate resilience
  • Governance and Design:
    • Governance
    • Market design optionality
Given the technical nature of some of these issues, however, and in recognition that some stakeholders have more data and analysis to address some of these questions than others, we expected that some stakeholders would not answer every question. Please find all comments submitted as part of the study below and find update about the study and report on ODOE’s website.

If you have any questions please contact Adam Schultz (adam.schultz@energy.oregon.gov).