The Oregon House concurred with Senate amendments to HB 2065 and HB 2066, sending both measures to Governor Tina Kotek’s desk. If she signs them, Oregon will gain the nation’s first legal framework for neighborhood-scale and tribal microgrids inside investor-owned-utility territory.
The legislation would create a new class called a “community microgrid service provider,” limited to systems of ten megawatts or less. Once the bills become law, the Public Utility Commission will have a year to craft an expedited interconnection rule. That rule must rely on IEEE 2030.10 for islanding studies, place a firm ceiling on the fees utilities can charge for those studies, and require an interconnection decision within ninety days.
Investor-owned utilities would also be directed to file a tariff that credits microgrids for the surplus energy they export—up to the level of their designated critical load. Projects that qualify under the new definition would immediately become eligible for Oregon’s Community Renewable Energy Fund, which offers design grants of up to $100,000 and construction grants of up to $1 million. The fund gives priority to systems that can keep fire stations, emergency shelters, or water-supply infrastructure online during outages.
Developers expect early applications from wildfire-prone towns east of the Cascades and from tribes along the I-5 corridor that already operate solar arrays. Under the new framework a three-megawatt solar canopy, paired with an eight-hour battery, could island a cluster of essential buildings while earning ancillary-service revenue under the forthcoming tariff. For utilities the bills offer predictability: study methods, cost recovery, and timelines are all spelled out, reducing uncertainty for both sides of the interconnection.
Legislators in Washington and Colorado have already cited Oregon’s language while drafting similar proposals for their 2026 sessions. If the governor signs HB 2065 and HB 2066, the Pacific Northwest is likely to become a proving ground for one- to five-megawatt community microgrids.
Engineers who want to turn these pending rules into build-ready projects need skills in hybrid-DER sizing, grid-forming protection studies, and microgrid-control integration. The Microgrid Systems Certificate Program—developed by Telepath Systems and Cleveland State University—covers those core areas and helps local teams translate new legislation into energized microgrids.