Portland General Electric has asked the Oregon Public Utility Commission to approve its proposed $1.9 billion purchase of PacifiCorp’s Washington assets, saying the deal paves the way for continued investments in the Pacific Northwest.
The deal, which is subject to state and federal regulatory approval, was first announced in February 2026. PGE submitted its application with the PUC April 3. (See PGE to Acquire PacifiCorp’s Wash. Operations for $1.9B.)
Under the agreement, PGE would set up a new Washington utility to purchase three PacifiCorp generation facilities, 4,500 miles of transmission and distribution lines, and a 2,700-square-mile service territory containing about 140,000 electricity customers concentrated in Yakima, Walla Walla and nearby areas, according to PGE’s application (UP 443).
The new utility goes by the working name Gem and would be a separate corporate entity from PGE, which will own 51% of the company, with Manulife Investment Management holding the balance.
PacifiCorp’s approximately 150 employees will be offered employment with Gem after the deal closes, PGE said.
In written testimony, Sujata Pagedar, PGE senior director of rates and regulatory affairs, said the deal is part of PGE’s efforts to tackle affordability pressures, reliability requirements, wildfires and the integration of clean energy resources.
The purchase “reflects the movement toward consolidation in the utility industry over the past decades,” Pagedar said. She noted utilities have “experienced strong demand and evolving policies that require significant investment in infrastructure.”
“Combined with steady increases in operating costs, utilities face financial pressure on cash flows, balance sheets and credit metrics,” Pagedar wrote. “The strategic combination of two operating utilities in the Pacific Northwest will enable PGE and Gem to attract the capital needed to finance capital investments on favorable terms in the future.”
The facilities include the 477-MW gas-fired Chehalis Power Plant, as well as the Goodnoe Hills and Marengo wind farms, rated at 94 MW and 234 MW, respectively.
The service area includes 84% residential and 16% commercial and industrial customers, according to the application.
Pagedar said the transaction would not impact PGE’s upcoming participation in CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM).
PGE and PacifiCorp are among the utilities that withdrew from the first “binding” season of the Western Power Pool’s Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP). They exited after voicing concern that participants in SPP’s alternative day-ahead market Markets+ would gain outsized influence because WRAP is a program requirement for Markets+.
Both utilities have backed development of an alternative RA program geared toward non-EDAM participants. (See Pathways’ ROWE Could Offer Western RA Program, PGE Says.)
“A regional resource adequacy framework that is under development offers a market-aligned approach to providing sufficient power supply across the region, reducing the need for redundant resources, lowering costs, and improving system reliability during extreme weather events or unexpected outages,” Pagedar noted in the written testimony.
Pam Sporborg, PGE’s director of transmission and markets, is also co-chair of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative’s Launch Committee. The initiative was created as an independent organization to oversee CAISO’s energy markets.
In separate testimony, PGE Senior Director Treasurer Christopher Liddle said the combination of PGE and Gem would “serve a greater number of customers, gaining size and greater geographic and earnings diversification due to Gem’s operations in another state.”
“As a larger company, funds invested in any given capital project will represent a smaller proportion of overall company assets and capitalization,” Liddle said. “The combined companies will gain a larger, experienced workforce to share across systems.”
“This is a targeted step toward ensuring the continued delivery of safe, reliable power to our nearly two million customers in the West and Intermountain West,” PacifiCorp CEO Darin Carroll said. “This will improve the company’s financial stability while simplifying our operations to support our long-term commitment to customers in each of our remaining states.”
PGE asked the PUC to approve the transaction on or before March 1, 2027.
