NW Energy Coalition

May 1 marks a momentous day for affordable, reliable, and clean energy in the Northwest and beyond. All of us rely upon a regional, even West-wide, electric grid to power our homes and businesses. Throughout our history utilities across the region have traded power between each other to balance out generation and demands. This system leverages the diverse resources across our region—e.g., wind in the eastern parts of the northwest states, solar in the arid areas, and hydroelectric power to balance it all.  

However, these resources have impacts on our lands, wildlife, fish and communities. As we grow both the scale of clean energy and our overall needs, we must modernize the trading system so we can minimize impacts, reduce overall costs, and increase reliability.

Today, a major new mechanism went live: the Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM). This new market mechanism enables utilities to plan for each successive day to ensure sufficient resources to meet expected needs. Planning ahead enables more clean energy options and helps control costs. By joining the EDAM, utilities can use an integrated and sophisticated system to match the expected output of wind and solar resources, river flows, and energy needs to find the least cost available resources. All credible studies show this modern approach to energy trading is likely to reduce power costs and maintain reliability.

After years of planning and processes, now the EDAM is operating—with Northwest utilities leading the way. As the first entity to go live, PacifiCorp builds upon decades of trading power with entities in California and is paving the way for other utilities to join. Portland General Electric is expected to be the next entity to go live in October. 

A number of utilities have also announced plans to join, covering a large portion of the West. For example, NV Energy recently announced they will join the EDAM, thus greatly expanding the market’s (and thereby the Northwest’s) access to solar power and a growing geothermal resource base. And we expect more utilities will join, realizing the benefits of a larger market footprint.

This progress builds on two foundations: 

• The Western Energy Imbalance Market has been operating since 2014 and delivered over $8.6 billion in energy cost savings to the region. The WEIM enables utilities to trade within each hour to balance resources and loads. The EDAM extends this proven mechanism to address each hour of the day, thereby increasing the potential benefits for power costs, reliability, and clean air.
• Improved governance that promotes the public interest, respects the differing policies of Western states, and provides independent oversight. Stakeholders across the West, including NWEC, were engaged in a multi-year effort to develop and secure these improvements through the Pathways Initiative. As the EDAM market grows, the Regional Organization for Western Energy, which continues to be shaped by stakeholders across the west, will take on this key independent governance role. 

NWEC has been and will continue to be an advocate for the largest West-wide market possible. With the launch of EDAM, the West has its chance. We have called on the largest supplier of electricity in the Northwest, Bonneville Power Administration, to reconsider its decision to join a competing day-ahead market in the West. Study after study, including BPA’s own economic analysis, demonstrate more benefits to the region if BPA chooses to join EDAM instead. In addition, with the development of an entity fully controlled by Western interests and independent of any single entity to govern EDAM, EDAM represents a stark and inclusive contrast to any other proposed market mechanism.

We continue to encourage every utility in the Northwest to join the EDAM. Through collaboration, growing our footprint, and modernizing our system, we can create a grid that accesses high-quality clean energy at the lowest possible costs while mitigating the risks of localized stress from weather conditions or outages. 

The post NWEC Celebrates the Launch of the Extended Day-Ahead Market  first appeared on NW Energy Coalition.

Northwest Transmission Summit

Join us May 7-8 in Boise, Idaho to discuss how we can reinforce and expand our
transmission system to meet our region’s needs and build toward our prosperous
future.

Montana Regional Connectivity Study

To encourage an informed discussion about transmission options in the Northwest, NWEC and our partner organizations commissioned Energy Strategies and Montara Mountain Energy to analyze potential pathways for delivering as much as 12,000 MW of new energy from Montana to the grid by 2035, while minimizing impacts on people and landscapes.

We are advocating for a new forward-looking, community first approach to transmission planning—one that seeks to engage with stakeholders and communities early in the planning process, to identify needs, concerns, opportunities and benefits right from the start. This study is a tool to begin important and necessary conversations to achieve the goal of a safe, reliable and efficient electricity grid that can provide access to the lowest cost energy resources while increasing grid reliability and economic development opportunities for Montana.

New NWEC Members

Welcome to our new members: Engineers for a Sustainable Future, Greenlight America, MeterHome, and The Nature Conservancy!

Court Orders Emergency Protections for Columbia Basin Salmon after Federal Deal Collapses

At the end of February, a federal judge in Oregon granted critical emergency measures to protect endangered salmon and steelhead, which will provide a vital lifeline after the federal government unilaterally ended the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement last summer.

Read more from OPB, The Seattle Times, and Underscore News.

What happened in the 2026 legislative session?

The short 2026 Legislative Session ended on March 12. NWEC tracked over 80 bills and engaged on about 20 bills in Olympia and virtually. Thank you to everyone who engaged with us, followed along, and pushed affordable and reliable clean energy advocacy forward!

Regional & State Policy Director, Zach Baker, led the state’s first big legislative push on data center regulation in two pairs of bills (HB 2515/SB 6171 and HB 2245/SB 5982). NWEC staff, members, and partners pushed many impactful bills through the finish line, including but not limited to:

• SB 5982, closing data center Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) loopholes
• HB 1903, creating a state bill assistance program
• HB 2367, regulating the Centralia coal plant
• HB 2338, expanding community-scale weatherization
• SB 6200, granting renters cooling access
• SB 6355, establishing a transmission authority
• HB 1960, changing the tax structure for large wind and solar projects

What’s Next?
CETA Education. As we see mounting challenges ahead of 2030 (e.g., transmission, resource adequacy, increasing energy bills) and recognize that fewer legislators have historical knowledge on CETA, it will be important to educate legislators and the public on the purpose of CETA in the interim.
Data Centers. NWEC will continue to lead stakeholder engagement and help look for additional bill sponsors in the interim.

We expect to see work continue on data centers, utility wildfire liability, affordability, and CETA in the 2027 long session. Read more from the Environmental Priorities Coalition. We will share more
information on the bills that passed and lessons we learned this session in an
upcoming blog—stay tuned!

Supporters of HB 1903 from Front and Centered, Washington State Community Action Partnership, NW Energy Coalition, and Franklin PUD with Rep. Sharlett Mena on the Capitol steps in Olympia. Led by NWEC partner Front and Centered and Rep. Mena, HB 1903 establishes a statewide monthly energy bill discount program that will supplement existing assistance programs and create a partnership between the State Department of Commerce and utilities to more equitably deliver energy assistance. The program will be funded by the Climate Commitment Act and is expected to gradually grow as additional funding becomes available. NWEC worked closely with our partners to offer policy expertise and advocate for this bill, and it is a significant step toward reducing household energy burden and keeping bills more affordable.

NWEC and allies challenge PSC’s decision to keep data center information secret

On March 12, NW Energy Coalition joined member groups and allies in filing a challenge to the protective order NorthWestern Energy received with regard to its dealings with proposed data centers. The groups had previously filed a complaint at the MT Public Service Commission, arguing that the utility needed
to comply with state law and seek Commission approval prior to supplying power to new large loads in Montana. But NorthWestern has denied that the statute is applicable, and it has refused to publicly disclose the details surrounding three prospective new data centers, for which it has signed letters
of intent to provide electric service. Combined, the new data would account for additional electric demand of 1,400 MW—twice the size of NorthWestern’s entire statewide average electric load. Needless to say, a increase in electric service of that magnitude raises serious questions about grid reliability, infrastructure costs and affordability for Montana’s residential and commercial electric customers. We hope the Commission will reverse course and rescind its prior order allowing the utility to redact and
withhold this important information from the public.

Read more in The Daily Montanan.

As Idaho faces rapid load growth across all customer types, the issue of who pays for new infrastructure and power needs is increasingly important. A primary way to address this issue is through the part of the utility rate-making process known as “cost of service” which allocates costs to the customer groups that are causing the increases. As part of settling Idaho Power’s recent general rate case, NWEC worked with our allies at Clean Energy Opportunities for Idaho and the City of Boise to cause a special docket focused on revising the cost of service method. NWEC recently filed initial feedback to Idaho Power that recommended some key improvements regarding the costs for transmission lines and new power plants. If adopted, these improvements should shift costs away from residential and small business customers and back onto the very large users whose demand contributes to overall system needs. NWEC will then build upon these cost allocation methods to create electric rates that will encourage more flexible use by all customers. Our goal is to enable growth that fits within the existing system and mitigate the need for additional infrastructure.

Idaho Power also recently filed plans to build hundreds of megawatts of new gas plants to meet peak energy demands beginning in 2029. These rising demands are not just data centers, rather every part of Idaho continues to grow as people move in, businesses develop, and Micron builds more memory chips. NWEC is reviewing the filings to determine if these forecasted peak loads are realistic and identify opportunities to address needs though more flexible customers and more battery storage to avoid adding additional fossil fuel generation to the mix.

Big tech took down new data center regulations, WA lawmaker says (Seattle Times)

NW environmental groups ask court to overturn Centralia order (Clearing Up)

Washington’s State’s data center regulation bill fails following pushback from tech industry (GeekWire)

Energy watchdogs: Data center protective order is unconstitutional (Missoula Current)

Judge orders spill at Northwest dams to aid salmon, despite energy concern (RTO Insider)

Next generation geothermal needs more than a technology revolution (Canary Media)

The post April 2026 Newsletter first appeared on NW Energy Coalition.