The Real Story- A Column
If you’ve watched the local news this past week, you’d think Portland General Electric (PGE) just saved the working class . The media has been on an uncritical “victory tour,” breathlessly reporting that PGE is hiking electricity rates on massive data centers by a whopping 29% while providing “welcome relief” to everyday residents. It sounds like a populist dream come true: the Silicon Forest tech monopolies are finally footing the bill, and the little guy wins.
Don’t buy the hype.When you pull back the glossy PR curtain and look at the actual regulatory math, this entire announcement reveals itself as a calculated corporate shell game. It isn’t a victory for consumers; it’s a shareholder profit grab disguised as a rate correction.
Let’s start with the most insulting number in the equation: the 1.3% residential “reduction.” Just two months ago, in April, PGE hit Washington County residents with a brutal 5% rate hike, adding roughly $8 to $10 to the average monthly bill. Now, after being legally forced by the state’s new framework to stop openly fleecing residents to build data center infrastructure, PGE returns a measly 1.3%. For a family stretching to pay a $150 electric bill, April’s hike added $7.50. June’s “relief” takes back a pathetic $1.95. Residents are still significantly worse off than they were in March, yet we are expected to cheer for the scraps falling from the corporate table.
Meanwhile, the media has entirely ignored the jaw-dropping disparity in what we actually pay per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Residential homeowners in western Oregon are paying upwards of 20 cents per kWh, while massive data centers have been subsidized at a dirt-cheap rate of roughly 8 cents per kWh. Even with this new 29% data center penalty, a multi-billion-dollar hyperscaler’s rate only bumps up to about 10.3 cents per kWh. Working families, seniors on fixed incomes, and small local businesses are still paying nearly double what data centers pay per unit of energy.
EVEN AFTER THE RATE INCREASE. RESIDENTS STILL PAY 200% OF WHAT DATA CENTERS PAY FOR PGE POWER!!!
If you want proof of how badly Washington County residents are being taken for a ride, look right across the river. In Vancouver, customers of Clark Public Utilities—a consumer-owned, at-cost public utility district—enjoy a flat energy charge , clearly outlined in Clark PUD’s Residential Rate Schedules, of just 8.79 cents per kWh…