This is the first installment of a three-part series on the development of the Oregon Energy Strategy from April 2024 through September 2025. You can find the second installment, Oregon Energy Strategy: Complementary Analyses, here and the third installment, Oregon Energy Strategy: Jobs Analysis, here.
On the final day in April of 2024, the Clean Energy Transition Institute-Oregon Energy Strategy (CETI-OES) Team convened in Salem, OR with 19 members of the Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) staff to kick off a technical modeling process designed to identify pathways to achieving the state’s energy policy objectives.
The Oregon Legislature’s HB 3630 directed ODOE to develop a state energy strategy and to submit a report to the Governor and Legislature by November 1, 2025 that (1) summarized the state energy strategy and pathways to achieving the state’s energy policy objectives; (2) described ODOE’s engagement process and how perspectives informed the energy strategy; and (3) recommended legislation or policy changes necessary to implement the state energy strategy.
Over the ensuing 16 months, the CETI-OES Team partnered with ODOE to provide technical, economic, equity, and workforce analysis to help meet this legislative requirement and craft the Draft Oregon Energy Strategy, which was released on August 14, 2025 and remains open for public comment through September 22, 2025.
Six individuals comprised the original CETI-OES Team: Energy Pathways Modelers Jeremy Hargreaves, Ben Haley, and Jamil Farbes of Evolved Energy Research; Technical Modeling Consultant Elaine Hart of Sylvan Energy Analytics; Equity Advisor Angela Long of Rockcress Consulting; CETI Equity Analyst Mariah Caballero; CETI Research Analyst Ruby Moore-Bloom; and CETI Founder and Executive Director Eileen V. Quigley.
This team worked with ODOE from May 2024 through January 2025 to develop the technical and economic energy pathways analysis that ultimately culminated in a final presentation to the public on January 31, 2025 at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Over that eight-month period, the CETI-OES Team participated in multiple rounds of listening sessions and public webinars, as well as sector-specific working groups and meetings with subject matter experts.
For details about ODOE’s public engagement process, see a compilation of all engagement around the data gathering and scenario modeling that led to the assumptions that informed the energy pathways modeling; the comprehensive summary of all input received during the technical modeling phase; and pp. 5-7 of the Draft Oregon Energy Strategy.
The deep engagement was designed to both explain the technical analysis as well as receive input on the assumptions to go into the models that would produce analysis to guide policy-making. The CETI-Evolved Energy Technical Approach to Energy Modeling was a key deliverable that the CETI-OES team produced early in the process to describe the energy pathways modeling, a visual summary of which is depicted in this infographic. Additional key work products include the modeling assumptions and sources and the Oregon Energy Strategy Technical Report, a 210-page PowerPoint presentation that compiled the complete modeling results.
While the energy pathways analysis focused on Oregon’s whole economy, HB 3630 also required ODOE to perform complementary analyses to inform how achieving decarbonization might impact employment, businesses, and households. This work included: (1) a household energy wallet analysis; (2) air quality modeling associated with health impacts; (3) geospatial mapping; and (4) employment analysis. On April 16, 2025, the CETI-OES Team presented the first three of the complementary analyses of achieving a low-carbon future in the Beaver State.
Meanwhile, in December 2024, Phil Jordan, Mitch Schirch, and Sophia Chryssanthancopoulos of BW Research joined the CETI-OES Team and began modeling the potential jobs that the energy pathways indicated might develop. That work was presented on August 14, 2025 during the same event that ODOE announced the Draft Oregon Energy Strategy. The full results from the employment analysis will be released in September 2025.
The CETI-OES Team modeled a least-cost Reference Scenario that incorporated high levels of both energy efficiency and end-use electrification. The team compared this pathway to six scenarios and four sensitivities, each of which changed a key assumption in the Reference Scenario while holding other assumptions constant.
The 10 alternative pathways to the Reference Scenario were designed to probe the technical and economic impact of delaying or limiting different decarbonization solutions, such as energy efficiency, electrification, distributed energy resources, demand response, renewable energy generation, transmission, clean fuels, and vehicle miles traveled. The scenarios also looked at the effect of increasing rooftop solar as well as limiting natural gas/biogas. (For a complete description of the 10 scenarios and sensitivities, please consult pp. 12-23 of the Oregon Energy Strategy Technical Report.)
This exploration of potential energy interactions across the state’s transportation, buildings, fuels, and electricity sectors demonstrated the importance of energy efficiency and electrification to achieving economic, economy-wide decarbonization. These conclusions offered the ODOE team insights into how the state might shape policies to achieve its energy objectives.
ODOE is asking Oregonians for feedback in five areas: (1) the five pathways suggested in the draft energy strategy to advance the state’s energy policy objectives; (2) the policies that provide specific ways to advance the pathways and frame context for near-term actions; (3) the equity and justice framework that ODOE is suggesting to guide decision-making processes to reduce disproportionate costs of energy and increase benefits for environmental justice communities; (4) legislative actions to overcome near-term barriers; and (5) how well the overall draft reflects the input ODOE received from the public throughout the project.
ODOE also developed a section on feedback and themes from the nine federally recognized tribes in Oregon that is not included in the options for public comment, but is offered for readers to consider applying to other aspects of the draft energy strategy.
The CETI-OES Team was honored to have played a part in developing the Draft Oregon Energy Strategy. Given the policy uncertainty that currently dominates the development of clean energy in the United States, it is extremely valuable that Oregon has produced such a detailed and carefully constructed strategy to guide its clean energy future.
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