NWPPA Morning Brief

NWPPA Morning Brief - Wednesday, June 24, 2026

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NWPPA Morning Brief — Wednesday, June 24, 2026

In today's brief:

Top Federal Developments

Top Regional / State Developments

AI and Large Load Demand Radar

Worth Knowing

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

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

SPEAKER_01

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, DOE commits $17.5 billion to jumpstart large-scale nuclear reactor manufacturing. The House moves on a bipartisan bill to protect ratepayers from data center cost shifts. Spokane's City Council puts a one-year moratorium on large data centers. Northwest groups press incoming BPA administrator Travis Cavula to halt the Markets Plus transition. The Black Hills and Northwestern merger clears three state commissions, and there's new data on just how much power those DOE emergency-ordered coal plants are actually producing. Today's briefing is brought to you by NWPPA's Women in Public Power Conference, July 28th to 30th in Santa Rosa, California. Three days of connection, candid conversation, and community by and for the Women of Public Power. Register at NWPPA.org.

SPEAKER_00

The story I want to flag immediately is the DOE emergency plant data. We've had a string of 202C orders, the emergency authority to compel near retirement plants to keep running, justified on reliability grounds. And now there's hard output data suggesting the megawatts being preserved on paper are not the same as megawatts available to dispatch. Two of the six ordered plants produced zero electricity in the first quarter of this year. Combined output across five of them fell 65% year over year. That is a concrete reliability question, not a theoretical one.

SPEAKER_01

And it matters for Western planners specifically because these orders have been cited as reliability backstops while the region navigates the transition. If the backstop isn't actually backstopping, the resource adequacy math changes.

SPEAKER_00

Let's get into it. Start with the DOE nuclear financing. The Department of Energy announced a $17.5 billion conditional loan commitment to finance long-lead components, reactor vessels, heavy forgings, parts that take years to manufacture, for up to 10 Westinghouse AP 1000 reactors. The structure is aimed at restarting domestic nuclear manufacturing capacity, and the administration says bulk procurement could cut project timelines by up to three years. For Western public power utilities, this is the most concrete federal financing signal for large-scale nuclear in years.

SPEAKER_01

The question is whether this moves from signal to option for any utility in this footprint. Balance sheet capacity, joint action structures, siting. Those constraints don't disappear because DOE opened a financing window. But the pathway is now more defined, and utilities doing long-range resource planning need to know that federal capital is on the table at this scale.

SPEAKER_00

Watch whether Western joint action agencies or state energy offices begin formal feasibility work. The financing exists. The organizational architecture to access it for public power does not yet.

SPEAKER_01

Moving to the Ratepayer Protection Act, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee is marking up a package of bills today, including the Bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, which would require states to consider a federal standard that large power customers cover 100% of the cost of new generation and transmission upgrades they trigger. Microsoft and Google have endorsed it. The Data Center Coalition, which includes Meta and Microsoft, says it is still reviewing the measure.

SPEAKER_00

The bill doesn't override existing state-level large load tariff work, but it establishes a national reference point that state commissions will weigh when ruling on cost allocation disputes. For public power utilities that have been navigating these cost shift questions locally, a federal standard changes the posture of those negotiations. Watch whether the markup produces amendments that soften the 100% standard or create carve outs.

SPEAKER_01

Turning to the 202C output data, a utility dive investigation found that of six power plants DOE ordered last year to delay retirement under its emergency authority, two produced zero electricity in the first quarter of 2026. One is offline for major turbine and boiler work, and combined output from five plants fell 65% year over year, from 4.3 million megawatt hours in Q1 2025 to 1.5 million megawatt hours in Q1 2026. These orders have become a recurring pattern and they carry both a reliability rationale and a political context. The administration has been clear about its preference for keeping coal capacity online. But the output data puts the reliability claim under pressure.

SPEAKER_00

There are two reads. One is that preserving optionality has value even when units sit idle. The other is that a megawatt on paper that can't dispatch isn't a megawatt for reliability purposes. Western planners need to know which one they're actually counting on in their adequacy assessments.

SPEAKER_01

Next up, the Spokane Data Center Moratorium. The Spokane City Council voted 6-1 on June 22nd to impose an emergency one-year moratorium on new large data centers, defined as projects above 25 megavolt amperes within city limits. The vote followed reporting that A Vista had been in talks with a potential 500 megawatt customer, equal to roughly half the combined residential and business load in Spokane County, before Avista paused those negotiations. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council projects data centers and chip fabrication could add 2,200 average megawatts of Northwest load by 2030, or 4,800 under a high growth scenario. One council member warned the moratorium could affect an aerospace tech hub with a data center sublease in play.

SPEAKER_00

What's notable here is the mechanism. This is a city using land use authority to address a load sighting question that the utility itself may not control. Mayor Brown noted the city's duty to serve limits its authority to refuse a water customer. But a moratorium on land use is a different tool entirely. For Northwest public power utilities watching large load requests pile up, Spokane is a working example of what happens when the political pressure reaches the Council Chamber before the rate case reaches the Commission.

SPEAKER_01

Shifting to the BPA Markets Plus question. Five Pacific Northwest organizations, the NW Energy Coalition, Idaho Conservation League, Montana Environmental Information Center, Sierra Club, and Oregon Citizens Utility Board, publicly called on incoming BPA administrator Travis Cavula to halt the Bonneville Power Administration's process of leaving the Western Energy Imbalance Market and joining Markets Plus, the day-ahead market being built by SPP. The group cite BPA's own analysis suggesting the move could cost Northwest energy users billions in excess costs over time. Washington, Oregon, several tribes, major utilities, and consumer advocates have separately raised concerns.

SPEAKER_00

Kavula is walking into one of the most consequential market structure decisions BPA has faced in years, and the opposition is broad and sourced. It's not just advocacy groups, it includes state governments and tribes. The question in front of him is whether to revisit the decision or hold the existing timeline. For utilities buying BPA wholesale power, that choice directly shapes wholesale rates and dispatch access across the Western footprint. This one is worth watching closely as he settles in.

SPEAKER_01

Over to the Black Hills and Northwestern merger. The proposed stock-for-stock combination has now cleared regulatory review in Nebraska, Montana, and South Dakota. Nebraska's approval included commitments to hold base rates steady through 2027 and 2028, respectively, with settlements covering rate stability, cost containment, and ratepayer protection from transaction costs. This moves the combination of two major Western utilities closer to completion.

SPEAKER_00

The combined eight-state footprint reshapes the investor-owned utility counterparty landscape in Montana, the Dakotas, and the Central Rockies. For utilities in that region coordinating on wholesale supply, transmission, or joint projects, the organizational picture on the other side of those relationships is changing. Worth updating your counterparty map.

SPEAKER_01

On the pricing front, Front Month Henry Hub Natural Gas Futures were trading at $3.19 per million BTU on June 24th, down from $3.21. NYMEX WTI Front Month Crude Futures were trading at $70.97 per barrel, down from $73.45.

SPEAKER_00

Western spot prices for delivery June 23rd. Sumus Natural Gas was $1.30 per million BTU. Mid-Columbia Power was $33 per megawatt hour. On the capital side, the 10-year treasury yield was 4.51% on June 22nd, up from 4.46%. COMEX Copper settled at $6.05 per pound on June 23rd, down from $6.14.

SPEAKER_01

Turning to the California Resource Adequacy Proceeding, the California Community Choice Association filed comments urging the California Public Utilities Commission to revise its proposed resource adequacy decision, the rules requiring load-serving entities to hold enough capacity to meet peak demand plus a reserve margin. Cal CCA argues the draft leaves about $180 million in identified ratepayer savings on the table, would force renegotiation of 249 contracts across 11 community choice aggregators, could impede battery dispatch when it is most needed, and lacks a clear method for allocating cost when data center load forecasts can vary by a factor of 10.

SPEAKER_00

The details are California specific, but the design questions are not. How do you structure capacity products as batteries scale? How do you allocate cost for large new loads with highly uncertain demand curves? Northwest Commissions are working through the same questions as EDAM matures and day-ahead markets take shape. Cal CCA's filing is a useful reference document.

SPEAKER_01

Moving to the large load radar, Texas regulators approved ERCOT's batch zero large load interconnection process against a queue of more than 438 gigawatts of requests, nearly 90% data centers. Under the new framework, ERCOT will study projects of 75 megawatts or larger in groups rather than individually. This came the same day FERC concluded that most grid operators' existing large load interconnection rules are inadequate and directed each to develop region-specific rules.

SPEAKER_00

The Texas Framework, Batch Study, Full Picture Demand Assessment, Defined Q, is one of the first concrete templates for managing a queue of this scale. Western interconnection planners and state commissions will be watching how batch zero performs under real project volume. Meanwhile, Wyoming commissioners unanimously approved a conditional use permit for a 1.25 gigawatt data center campus near Evanston, one of the largest single loads proposed in the Western Interconnection. That's still subject to interconnection and transmission review, but the local approval is real.

SPEAKER_01

And AEP disclosed 18 gigawatts of signed data center load agreements through 2029. Signed contracts, not queue requests. That is the underlying market pressure driving both the FERC action and the Texas process, and it's not confined to the east.

SPEAKER_00

Wrapping with the NOAA drought outlook, NOAA's June quarterly report for the Western region found spring temperatures above to well above normal across most of the West, with record warmest spring readings in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. Drought persists across much of the Colorado River basin heading into summer, while above-normal precipitation appeared in parts of northern Montana and Central California.

SPEAKER_01

For utilities with Colorado River exposure or resource plans tied to Southwest hydrology, the combination of record heat and persistent drought is a resource planning variable, not background noise. The basin heading into summer in drought conditions with above-normal temperatures already on the books is a signal worth carrying into your next IRP update.

SPEAKER_00

One to watch. A separate interior deal paid Invenergy $765 million to terminate a different California lease under the same framework. California's filing characterizes these payments as an unlawful use of federal funds under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and says they put more than $100 million in voter-approved state climate investments at risk.

SPEAKER_01

This is a constitutional and statutory fight over federal authority to terminate energy leases and direct where private companies invest. And it's playing out in a state where public power entities have offshore wind in their long-range resource plans. The legal theory California is advancing, if it prevails, would constrain the administration's ability to use lease termination as an energy policy tool. If it doesn't, the precedent runs the other direction. Either outcome reshapes the offshore wind risk calculus for Western utilities with clean energy mandates.

SPEAKER_00

The federal offshore wind picture has been unsettled all year. This adds a litigation layer on top of the policy uncertainty. Utilities with any offshore wind dependency in their planning assumptions should be tracking both the legal theory and the timeline.

SPEAKER_01

Today's brief is dense with inflection points: nuclear financing, data center cost allocation, emergency plant reliability questions, and a BPA market decision that's far from settled. The common thread is that resource planning assumptions being stress tested simultaneously from multiple directions.

SPEAKER_00

And the Cavula decision on Markets Plus may be the one with the most immediate consequence for the broadest slice of this audience. Watch that one closely as he takes the helm.

SPEAKER_01

That's your NWPPA morning brief for Wednesday, June 24, 2026. Sources for every story are linked in the show notes. We'll be back tomorrow morning. Keep the lights on.