Procurement at a Crossroads: Navigating New Load Pressures, Policy Shifts, and Renewable Mandates
- joyliechty
- Nov 10
- 3 min read
As the energy transition accelerates, utility procurement professionals find themselves at the center of a growing storm of policy, customer, and market complexity. No longer is procurement simply a matter of securing the lowest-cost supply to match a predictable load. Today, buyers must plan for load profiles that change quickly, regulatory expectations that evolve faster than implementation cycles, and a resource mix that must meet decarbonization goals without compromising reliability.
Several recent policy developments illustrate just how dynamic—and uncertain—the road ahead may be. Together, they point to one conclusion: procurement teams need better tools, frameworks, and flexibility to respond to a rapidly changing landscape.
FERC ANOPR: A New Lens on Large Loads
In its recent Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANOPR), FERC has signaled a growing concern with how large loads are interconnected to the interstate transmission system. Think: hyperscale data centers in Central Washington and Oregon, hydrogen production hubs in the I-5 corridor, EV fleet depots near urban ports, and electrification of heavy industry in regional manufacturing zones.
Historically, much of the interconnection process has focused on supply—how to integrate new generators into the grid. But this new ANOPR shifts attention to the demand side: how large and sometimes unpredictable loads gain access to transmission capacity and what that means for system reliability and cost allocation.
The implications for procurement are significant. Utilities and transmission providers may soon need to coordinate more directly on the timing and characteristics of large load interconnections, creating new complexity in forecasting, contract design, and system planning. For procurement teams, it could mean negotiating power supply for a portfolio that is no longer stable—or even fully within their control.
Oregon’s Power Act: Redefining the Customer Landscape
Meanwhile, Oregon’s Power Act introduces a new Commercial & Industrial (C&I) customer class, along with a set of rules that affect how these customers interact with their utilities:
How long must they stay with their utility before switching to direct access or community choice aggregation?
How much load must they commit to over that period?
For utilities, these changes introduce a layer of uncertainty in baseline procurement forecasting, potentially making long-term commitments riskier or harder to justify. For customers, it may unlock more flexibility—but also more responsibility in choosing when and how to engage in energy procurement.
RPS & Clean Energy Mandates: Another Layer of Complexity
While many utilities have frameworks in place, those plans often assume a stable customer base and predictable load. But when a new data center comes online, a C&I customer departs, or an interconnection accelerates, even small shifts can disrupt compliance—forcing unexpected procurement or leaving resources underutilized. What’s needed now is clean energy that’s flexible, forecast-aligned, and built to adapt.
Balancing New Pressures with Policy Goals
Between proposed FERC rules on large load interconnections, new customer-class policies like Oregon’s Power Act, and evolving RPS targets, procurement teams in the Northwest are facing an unprecedented mix of uncertainty and opportunity. How utilities plan, contract, and adapt to changing load conditions is more critical than ever. We're developing tools to support that work—and we want to hear directly from those on the front lines.
Where Policy Meets Practice: Your Voice Matters
Every utility’s challenges are different, and policies like the FERC ANOPR or Oregon’s Power Act land differently depending on your system, customers, and planning framework.
That’s why we’re inviting you—procurement managers, SMEs, and utility leaders—to share your perspective with us.
Take our short survey and help shape the future of energy procurement: