Let me open with the conclusion: Hillsboro Is Out Of Power. If that concerns you, read on. For two decades, Hillsboro was the “bacon-saver” for Oregon’s economy. When the state needed high-paying jobs, Hillsboro delivered. But a months-long investigation by the Hillsboro Herald—documented through a trail of stone-walled public records requests and “dark” construction sites—reveals a structural paradox that is paralyzing our future: Hillsboro has officially run out of juice.
By greenlighting a relentless wave of data centers over the past 6 years without synchronized utility coordination, Hillsboro’s leadership has backed the city and the State of Oregon into a corner. The “Silicon Forest” is facing a power drought that is now sidelining the very manufacturing giants that once defined our prosperity.
In October of 2025, the Herald asked the City of Hillsboro (Oregon) for a list of Data Centers
The City’s attempts to appear transparent began in October 2025, when it responded to the Herald’s initial inquiries with a spreadsheet listing 29 data centers in our City, confirming our claim that there were 30 data centers here. It was a significant document, but it was hollow. While the city provided building names and locations, they pointedly omitted the one metric that matters most: The MegaWatts committed and permitted. The main data point we asked for was the one we did not get.
By providing a list of buildings without the power load, leadership was able to claim “steady growth” while hiding the fact that those 29 sites were already pushing our electrical infrastructure toward a point of no return. We asked for the load; they gave us a mailing list.
The “Paper Commitment” Scandal: PGE Responds to our request, kind of.
With the City dodging the power metrics, we went to the source. In an exchange on April 1, 2026, at 3:03 PM, PGE Communications representative John Farmer finally confirmed the scale of the hidden commitment:
“In 2025 and the first part of 2026, PGE executed five contracts with data center customers for 430 MW.”
A link to a 2025 slide deck report provided some pretty pictures and words. The Q4 2025 Earnings Report clearly showed that Data Centers had driven industrial power demand up by 14%, while residential demand had expanded by only half of 1%. The company plans to spend approximately $1.3 to $1.7 billion annually through 2030 on generation, transmission, and distribution to maintain reliability. That said, the power is not in the valley right now.
When pressed by the Herald later that evening at 8:42 PM to clarify if that 430 MW was actually “energized” or merely a placeholder for dark or spec buildings, the line went silent. Three more attempts over the course of a week were made to gain clarity. PGE chose not to answer the additional questions or provide any response. This silence confirms what the physical evidence shows: buildings like EdgeConneX POR03 (planned for 21 MW) end up structurally finished but effectively “dead” on the vine, waiting for a grid that won’t be ready until 2030. The Herald has a source who stated that the newest Edge ConneX facility is being completed and will sit idle until PGE can provide power. We emailed the company to confirm this information, but have not received a response.
The Evasive Answers and the $1,760 Paywall to Know the Truth
When the Herald followed up in early 2026 to “ground-truth” the power crunch, the answers from City Hall turned from confident to more or less evasive. In February, our emails requested a statement regarding the information we had gathered on the power shortage. This time, the response was that the City hadn’t been “officially” notified, but there was little doubt it might be correct. This disconnect suggests a deliberate avoidance of disclosing the truth. When we asked for the records to prove what the City actually knew, the “9-day wall” went up. On April 8, 2026, the City Recorder’s office, under direction from the City Manager, slapped the Herald with a $1,760.00 estimate or more to see emails between the City and PGE, and a list of the Data Centers’ megawatts. This bolsters our headline’s claim.
The Economic Paradox – We Have Land, But We Don’t Have Power –
Oregon’s Superstar is now on the Bench!
Intel’s Ronler Acres supports roughly 15,000 high-paying jobs on its power load. In contrast, the 430 MW PGE recently promised to five data center customers will create fewer than 300 long-term positions. And after all the fighting about expanding Hillsboro’s Urban Growth Boundary to bring more jobs and companies here and help save the State of Oregon’s bacon, it appears that the power we had for “high-paying jobs” is gone. Now, even if Hillsboro attracts a big employer, we can not land them. Perhaps this is why Hillsboro recently lost out on landing a company from Japan that wanted to come here, according to Mayor Beach Pace at a recent gathering.
The Sidelining of Real Employers
The Comparison: Intel’s Gordon Moore Park (Ronler Acres) supports roughly 15,000 high-paying jobs.
The Tragedy: The 430 MW PGE has promised to five data center customers—enough to power two more Ronler Acres-sized campuses—will create fewer than 300 long-term jobs. And the power they have been promised has now locked down the valley. Land? Yes. Water? Yes. Skilled workforce? Yes! Power? No. Sorry.
Real Estate Deals On Hold – Powering Down
Adding to our conclusion about the power shortage was our discussion with a local landowner. The crisis is now hitting the closing table. A landowner near NW 273rd Avenue and Evergreen Road recently saw a major industrial land deal not close escrow. The buyer was informed by PGE that there is no power available for new users for at least 3 to 4 years. The ultimatum was simple: Wait, or no deal. The land that leadership promised would bring “high-paying jobs” is now power-locked.
The Infrastructure Wall: “North of Pearl” & The 2030 Fix
The Bottleneck: The “North of Pearl” (NOPE) Flowgate
The “North of Pearl” (NOPE) flowgate is the primary technical choke point for the entire Hillsboro industrial corridor, based on our research. In utility terms, a flowgate is a specific section of the transmission system where the physical wires have reached their thermal limit.
- The Problem: Think of this as a massive electrical funnel. While PGE may have access to enough total electricity, the “pipes” leading into North Hillsboro are too small. If PGE tries to push any more power through this specific path to energize new data centers (like POR03) or semiconductor expansions, the lines would literally overheat and sag, risking a catastrophic grid failure.
- The Consequence: This is why landowners are being told, “Wait or No Deal.” The system is physically incapable of delivering the massive megawatts currently under contract and for new job creators until the “funnel” is widened.
The Fix: The Hillsboro 500kV Expansion
The only permanent solution to break this gridlock is the Hillsboro 500kV Expansion project.
- What it is: A massive infrastructure project designed to bring ultra-high-voltage (500,000-volt) power directly into the heart of the North Hillsboro industrial zones. This would bypass the “North of Pearl” bottleneck and provide the massive capacity required by the next generation of manufacturing and AI data centers.
- The Catch (The Timing): This is a multi-year federal and state permitting process. Current PGE and OPUC filings indicate that this project will not be fully operational until May 2030.
From PGE – See Link Above:
“PGE anticipates significant load growth into the future from the semiconductor and data center industrial sectors, much of the forecasted growth will locate in the Beaverton/Hillsboro area on the west side of PGE’s service territory. Existing constraints north of the NOPE flowgate will limit industrial growth here.”
The Bottom Line: Until 2030, any “Power Commitment” PGE makes is essentially a lottery ticket. The infrastructure simply does not exist to energize the buildings being built today.
The Ratepayer Burden & The Battery Race
As the grid hits its thermal limit, rolling brownouts are a legitimate concern for this summer. To bypass this, we are seeing a race for BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems). These massive clusters, like the 400 MW Meadowlark project near the Urban Reserve, are “emergency tanks” for a failing system. Meanwhile, residential rates have spiked—adding roughly $8 per month to the average bill this month—as families subsidize the massive transmission upgrades required solely by these server farms.
A Plea to the Governor’s Data Center Panel
In January 2026, Governor Tina Kotek convened the Data Center Advisory Committee. The Herald is issuing a formal plea to this group: Come to Hillsboro. Leave the Salem boardrooms and walk the Evergreen corridor. Talk to the landowners whose deals are failing. Find the facts about our power grid. Confirm what is happening in our homes with power rates crushing household incomes.
We challenge you to hold a public forum here—if we can find enough power to light the room. We need an honest discussion about why our “Monopoly Power” provider and our local leaders allowed our industrial future to be sold to the highest bidder before the public even knew the tank was empty.
This may explain why Van Rose looks the way it does right now. Plans for a larger complex seem to have boiled down to one logistics center for now.
Meanwhile, it’s interesting to consider the infrastructure investments the city of Hillsboro made around the westernmost reaches of that Grand Bargain land prior to this. If a dearth of power is, in fact, what’s putting these projects on hold (I’d initially wondered if it wasn’t greater macroeconomic pressures), it’s led to the city accidentally getting ahead of the game on roads, sidewalks, signals, water, and sewer in those northern blocks.
Nice to get ahead, but I do wonder what the swaths of Hillsboro that are still waiting for their shot at many of these amenities think of seeing them placed in service of largely vacant parcels.
Well the hubris of taking every suitor with a “Damn The Torpedoes” approach is on the econmic development department. From my seat with lots of information both in the real estate and the community spheres, the City got way out over its skies. Now, assuming I am right and no one is denying it, we are in trouble. The Willametter Water pipe has Hillsboro on the hook for $600 Million in debt and the repayment of that debt relies on new users and lots of them. That power has to be sold at max output to finance that growth. The SDC fees are needed to keep things moving. The $120,000,000 that Beach says Hillsboro spent to get the 1.700 acres ready to go is running interest. And then there is the matter of the $160,000,000 land investment that Hillsboro made along Sewell and Meek Roads- also a significant bill. Tens of millions in annual interest clicking away. The one thing Hillsboro can not control is the power – this is like a NASCAR team winnig the race and then running out of fuel because their supplier is unable to get them the juice. Thus we see the Battery Craze and Hillsboro supporting it. And the constats tips I am getting for Nuclear Fusion – yes some of the jest recently in town appear to have been teams here looking at our fiber ring, national security, and a company names TAE Electronics. More on that to come. In the meantime, keep the lights on!
The moment there are brown outs the average citizen will start paying attention and come to the same conclusion that anyone paying attention to the situation already has. (If they haven’t already when paying their power bill)
Our politicians, planners, and PGE have or should have seen this coming 6 years ago or more and done something about it. They are and have been either inept at best or negligent at worst.
That the state decided to just begin studying the problem in 2026 is comical. (after allowing the incentivizing of these companies with tax breaks for years)
We are paying double for residential power and the grid is teetering on the edge of its capacity. The data centers all have the ability to run during a brown out when hundreds of semi-truck sized generators will spool up and we will have the equivalent of a diesel fired power plant running in Hillsboro. Most residents do not have the means to do the same.
With PGE we have the worst of two systems. No public accountability when they want to act like a private corporation and no competition when they act like a state run enterprise.
I don’t think that the answer is no data centers, there should have been allowances for some, but clearly unlimited won’t work. Smart planning would have made this sustainable growth. I see the argument for local control in planning in general but when dealing with massive amounts of a finite resource (electricity) city and county planners and local politicians are in way over their heads and it shows.
Wow, that is baffling that the powers that be apparently didn’t calculate the load versus the capacity of the currently available power lines correctly before allowing so many data centers. Thanks for the informative article. A $1760 fee for documentation sounds excessive.
Gerry, It should not be charged at all. Oregon law provides that information needs to be made available when it benefits the Public Benefit.
The City of Canby cannot continue to fill its industrial park because of transmission capacity shortfalls. Our local utility cooperative purchases power from BPA but it gets here via PGE transmission equipment. PGE sent a handlebar mustache out to explain to us that it’s our fault we neglected to ask for the transmission capacity in the past, but it had never come up before the LLM craze. Our expansion plans and Portland State University’s population data has not changed. We are getting gamed, and local jobs and tax receipts are the lovers.
If there’s even one more municipality out there with a similar story about exceeded transmission capacity, Mike Rogoway at the Oregonian has a story.
Commissioner, the utilities seem to be framing it as local government’s failure to do back-of-the-napkin math on transmission capacity, but what has this looked like on the ground? Is data center power usage framed as potential maximum capacity? Did developers or the companies themselves come in with estimates of when they’d reach those thresholds, only to exceed them when LLMs demanded more resources? In the case of your industrial park, was there an estimate for its power needs once it was fully built out and, if so, did it fall within existing transmission capacity? What pushed it over?
I don’t doubt that the “handlebar mustache” (taking that one) leaned into the bad-local-math narrative, but what in Canby’s view led it to believe that existing transmission capacity was adequate for the task?
Just trying to get a sense of how we get here and why the farm-turned-industrial-park across the street—which had robust plans similar to yours—now seems destined to be one warehouse, a bunch of streetlights, and a whole lot of nothing else.