NWPPA Morning Brief

NWPPA Morning Brief - Thursday, June 11, 2026

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NWPPA Morning Brief — Thursday, June 11, 2026

In today's brief:

Top Federal Developments

Top Regional / State Developments

AI and Large Load Demand Radar

Western Market Structure Signal

Pilot notice: AI-generated daily briefing. Verify before acting on it.

Feel free to reach out if you have comments or concerns.

SPEAKER_00

Before we begin, a quick note. The NWPPA morning brief is Generative AI, daily intelligence on the federal and Western developments shaping public power. It isn't human-reviewed before publication, so treat it like any AI tool and verify what you'll act on or cite. Sources are in the show notes. You're listening to the NWPPA morning brief. On today's brief, the Supreme Court throws appliance efficiency rules back to the appeals court, opening the door to a DOE rewrite that could reshape demand-side program assumptions across the West. Energy Secretary Wright proposes a 13% cut to the DOE Office of Science. California's net metering reform survives state Supreme Court review. A Colorado cooperative signs a 150 megawatt solar PPA. Excel's rate hike draws formal opposition in Colorado. Texas's governor moves to block data center costs shifting onto ratepayers, and PJM posts a $1 billion congestion bill in a single month. Today's briefing is brought to you by the Northwest Public Power Association. Stronger workforce, greater influence, informed decisions, serving community-owned electric utilities across the West since 1940.

SPEAKER_01

The appliance efficiency story is the one I'd lead with today. The Supreme Court didn't rule on the merits, it vacated and remanded, which means the DC circuit has to take another look under a legal standard the Trump DOE is actively pushing. That's not a final answer, but it hands DOE a credible path to rewriting or pausing standards that Western utilities have already baked into IRP savings assumptions and ratepayer funded rebate programs.

SPEAKER_00

And the exposure isn't hypothetical. If you built your DSM program around 2028 furnace efficiency baselines, those assumptions are now contingent. This is a planning problem that lands on Monday morning.

SPEAKER_01

Let's start with the efficiency rules. The Supreme Court vacated the DC Circuit decision upholding Biden-era DOE standards for commercial water heaters and consumer furnaces, sending the case back for reconsideration under the Trump administration's argument that the rules impose an undue burden on domestic energy resources. The American Gas Association had challenged the furnace standards specifically, arguing it would have effectively banned non-condensing furnaces in 2028. DOE is now reviewing both rules. For public power utilities, the operational question is straightforward. Any demand side management program, integrated resource plan, or ratepayer rebate structure that assumed these efficiency floors hold is now sitting on uncertain ground until DOE acts.

SPEAKER_00

The cascading effect is what utilities need to map out now. Federal cost share calculations, program savings projections, even partnership agreements with national labs doing weatherization research. All of those were calibrated against baselines that may move. The rewrite timeline is unknown, which makes it harder to hedge. Utilities should be pressure testing their DSM portfolios against a range of scenarios, not waiting for a final DOE rule.

SPEAKER_01

The one thing I'd add, this isn't a repeal, it's a remand. The appeals court could still uphold the rules. DOE could rewrite them narrowly or broadly. The range of outcomes is wide, and planning around the worst case may be as problematic as ignoring the risk entirely.

SPEAKER_00

Moving to the DOE budget, Energy Secretary Wright testified before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on the fiscal year 2027 budget request, which proposes $7.14 billion for the Office of Science, down from $8.25 billion enacted last year. That's a 13% top line reduction. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory are both in that funding envelope and both run grid modernization, hydropower, cybersecurity, and advanced reactor programs that Western public power utilities draw on directly.

SPEAKER_01

A top line cut doesn't automatically translate one-to-one into program level reductions. Appropriators will sort through which lines get protected and which absorb the hit. But the request sets the ceiling. If grid modernization and hydropower RD are not explicitly protected in the House and Senate marks, they're competing against everything else in a smaller pot. Utilities with active lab partnerships should be tracking which specific program lines are at risk, not just watching the top line number.

SPEAKER_00

Turning to California, the state Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge to the CPUC's NEM 3.0 reform, which reduced compensation rates for new rooftop solar customers. That closes off further state court review. The structure stands.

SPEAKER_01

For Western public power utilities outside California designing their own distributed generation tariffs, NEM 3.0 is now the most litigated and most affirmed reference point in the country for moving rooftop solar compensation toward avoided cost values. You now have a longer record of customer adoption data under the new rates. That's useful evidence if you're heading into a DG rate redesign before your own commission or board.

SPEAKER_00

Over to Colorado. Two stories moving at once. United Power, a cooperative serving Colorado's Northern Front Range, signed a power purchase agreement with Silicon Ranch for the 150 megawatt buyer's solar farm. This is the cooperative's resource diversification play following its exit from Tri-State GT. For other cooperatives and joint action agencies running parallel procurement processes, this is a live data point on PPA pricing and contract structure in the Colorado interconnection market.

SPEAKER_01

It's also a model worth studying for any former GT members still filling out their owned and contracted portfolios post-separation. The deal shows what that transition can look like in practice. Whether the terms and timeline are replicable elsewhere depends on interconnection queue position and bilateral market conditions, but the structure is instructive.

SPEAKER_00

On the Excel side of Colorado, consumer and environmental groups have filed formal opposition, intervening on the record as parties with standing to shape the outcome in the Colorado PUC proceeding on Excel's $225 million rate request. That would raise average residential bills by nearly 6%. The contested issues are bill impact, capital cost recovery, and program spending.

SPEAKER_01

For Colorado public power utilities and cooperatives serving adjacent territory, this case is a regional benchmark on two things. How much residential bill tolerance Colorado regulators are willing to defend in public, and how the Commission handles large rate increases tied to generation and transmission investment. The political environment around rate filings that follow this one will be shaped by how this proceeding lands.

SPEAKER_00

Frontmonth Henry Hub Natural Gas Futures were trading at $3.14 per million BTU on June 11, down from $3.23. NYMEX WTI Front Month Crude Futures were trading at $89.06 per barrel, down from $89.97.

SPEAKER_01

On the capital side, the 10-year Treasury yield was 4.53% on June 9th, down from 4.56%. Comex Copper settled at $6.26 per pound on June 10th, up from $6.25.

SPEAKER_00

Next up, the Texas Data Center story. Governor Greg Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas to prevent data centers from passing infrastructure upgrade costs onto residential and commercial ratepayers. This is the governor of the state with the most aggressive data center growth in the country, drawing a hard line on cost allocation.

SPEAKER_01

The political signal here is significant. When a Republican governor of Texas frames hyperscale load cost shifting as a ratepayer protection issue, the argument crosses party lines and moves into mainstream policy territory. The specific mechanisms PUCT considers, such as minimum bills, dedicated infrastructure cost recovery, departing load charges, are exactly what Western State Commissions and public power utilities are wrestling with right now in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, and Nevada. How Texas structures its response will be watched closely as a template or a cautionary tale.

SPEAKER_00

On the market structure front, the PJM congestion story. Software firm Grid Raven reported that transmission congestion cost PJM $1 billion in May 2026, with a single transmission line generating nearly $150 million in congestion costs over 72 hours. PJM is also reviewing more than 800 generation projects totaling 220 gigawatts after reopening its interconnection queue.

SPEAKER_01

That number is a direct data point on what load growth without commensurate transmission investment looks like at scale. For CAISO and EDAM participants, and for utilities weighing markets plus, the question of congestion exposure under expanded Western market footprints is not hypothetical. PJM is showing the math in real time. Congestion cost allocation design in Western market rules matters enormously, and this figure gives advocates on both sides of that debate a number to anchor their arguments.

SPEAKER_00

The appliance efficiency remand deserves a second look beyond the immediate DSM planning question. If DOE rewrites the furnace standard, particularly the non-condensing furnace provision, it doesn't just affect rebate program design. It changes the assumed energy savings in integrated resource plans that were built on a premise of continuing efficiency gains in the building stock. Utilities that used those projected savings to defer generation or transmission investment need to revisit those deferrals.

SPEAKER_01

The legal pathway matters here too. The remand goes back to the DC circuit under a standard that DOE is actively shaping. If the court defers to the new DOE legal interpretation, the standards are effectively paused pending rewrite. That process could run 18 months or longer. Planning cycles don't wait. Utilities should be identifying which IRP assumptions are most exposed and building contingency scenarios now, before the next resource plan cycle closes.

SPEAKER_00

The compounding factor is the DOE Office of Science budget cut. The national labs that help utilities model efficiency program outcomes and validate savings assumptions are also facing a funding squeeze. Those two developments landing together in the same week is worth tracking as a connected constraint on the analytical infrastructure public power relies on.

SPEAKER_01

Today's thread is federal actions narrowing planning certainty on efficiency baselines, on lab partnerships, on market congestion exposure. The through line is that assumptions baked into resource plans over the last several years are under simultaneous pressure from multiple directions. The utilities that come out ahead will be the ones that have already identified which assumptions are load bearing.

SPEAKER_00

Verify what you'll act on. Sources are in the show notes. That's your NWPPA morning brief for Thursday, June 11th, 2026. Sources for every story are linked in the show notes. We'll be back tomorrow morning. Keep the lights on.