The Northwest faces a “pretty scary” situation, with a new study showing a potential 9-GW capacity shortfall by 2030, increased energy prices and building constraints, the Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative’s (PNGC Power) CEO said Oct. 15.

Jessica Matlock, CEO at PNGC Power, told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that a recent study by Energy and Environmental Economics (E3) predicts that accelerated load growth and aging power plant retirements will create a resource gap starting at about 1.3 GW in 2026 and expanding to almost 9 GW by 2030.

“That’s approximately the load of the state of Oregon,” Matlock said.

As is the case nationwide, data centers are the primary drivers behind the expected load growth. PNGC members already have 15 data centers seeking connection within their service territories, Matlock said.

“And we wonder, is that really going to materialize? Well, they actually already came in and bought all the property and got the permits from the county, and they’re breaking ground. So, it’s actually happening now,” Matlock said.

Matlock added that the data centers are the “mega ones. These are the big ones that you all hear the names of: Amazon, Meta.”

PNGC consists of 25 electric cooperatives spread across seven Western states. PNGC operates as a Joint Operating Entity, allowing the utilities to pool resources and share risks. PNGC also is Bonneville Power Administration’s largest preference customer, according to the co-op’s website.

“Traditionally, we get all our power from Bonneville, but it’s been clear that Bonneville is pretty tapped out of hydropower, and so the region is looking at this huge deficit,” Matlock said.

BPA’s power rate schedule consists of multiple categories of primary rates for federal energy sales, including Priority Firm Tier 1 rate, which represents most of BPA’s power sales. Tier 2 rates are for energy a utility obtains from the agency in addition to its contractual right to power at Tier 1 rates, according to BPA’s website.

The issue now, Matlock said, is BPA’s Tier 1 is fully allocated, and the agency must compete for power on the market “against tech companies and other IOUs … that have deeper pockets in Bonneville.”

In July, BPA published new rates in its final record of decision for the BP-26 rate period covering the 2026/28 interval. Under the new rates, customers’ power rates will increase by about 8 to 9% over the next three years, while transmission rates will jump by an average of nearly 20%. (See BPA Customers to See Increased Power, Transmission Rates.)

“It’s getting pretty scary,” Matlock said. “So, the price of Tier 2 power for Bonneville is going to go up, including Tier 1 power.”

BPA spokesperson Maryam Habibi noted that BPA has created a new methodology for post-2028 under new provider-of-choice contracts.

“We would set the Tier 1 amounts each customer is able to purchase under a calculation outlined in that new provider of choice policy through a process next year,” Habibi said. “We don’t yet know if we would need to augment our resources for Tier 1 or Tier 2.”

Meanwhile, generator resources in active development account for 3,000 MW of new capacity, 850 MW of which are coal-to-gas conversions and 350 MW are hydro upgrades, Matlock noted.

“The others are wind, solar, potentially biomass, a couple other different resources,” she added. “That is not going to get us to where we need to get to.”

Some states, like Washington and Oregon, have strict decarbonization policies, making it difficult to meet the new resource adequacy requirements many utilities will be subject to under the two day-ahead markets emerging in the West: SPP’s Markets+ and CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market.

“For those states that are really confined to what they can develop — because you cannot develop natural gas in some of those — how are they going to meet these? We’re not sure,” Matlock said.

To meet the resource adequacy requirements with just renewable power “would require huge amounts of land.”

“We are developing solar and battery,” Matlock said. “That’s because we get additional capacity. We are continuing to talk to solar companies to develop that to shift to our Washington members. But the biggest problem for us to get this solar power to these members is the transmission system is too congested.”

She noted that PNGC is building a natural gas plant in northern Idaho from which it will ship natural gas to members in Washington state “to help keep the lights on.”

PNGC is exploring building transmission itself with the help of federal grants aimed at connecting data centers to transmission and then partnering with BPA on the buildout. The agency has paused certain transmission planning processes to clear the interconnection queue. (See BPA Transmission Pause Questioned During Workshop.)

“If we can’t get transmission to move solar, wind, natural gas, geothermal across the region to supply power to cities and towns, we are going to have a significant problem,” Matlock said.

Habibi said BPA does not build its own resources, but she noted that the agency has launched initiatives, such as the Grid Access Transformation project, which are “designed to improve access and streamline our processes for connecting resources.” She added that the new power contracts “add flexibility for customers to add new, non-federal resources. That flexibility does not exist today.”