The following is a transcript of the April 27, 2026, episode of Public Power Now. Learn more about subscribing to Public Power Now at Publicpower.org/Podcasts. Some quotes may have been edited for clarity.
Paul Ciampoli
Welcome to the latest episode of Public Power Now.
I'm Paul Ciampoli, APPA's News Director.
Our guest on this episode is Tracy Sutten, Resource Planning Manager at Oregon public power utility Springfield Utility Board.
Tracy, thanks for joining us on the podcast.
Tracy Sutten
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Paul Ciampoli
So Tracy, just to get our conversation started, I wanted to give you the opportunity to provide an overview of your role as a resource planning manager at the utility.
Tracy Sutten
I've been with Springfield Utility Board for 16 years, and in my role as the resource planning manager, I oversee the power purchase contract with Bonneville Power Administration, the integrated resource planning, manage the energy and conservation services, also manage the facilities for our utility, and then key account management and strategic planning.
Paul Ciampoli
In terms of preparing for this interview, one of the things that jumped out at me in terms of what was on the utility’s website is the 2025 integrated resource plan.
So I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about what you think are the key takeaways from the IRP as it relates to utility resource planning efforts.
Tracy Sutten
Oregon is one of the first states that required utilities to register an integrated resource plan. And that's our plans for how we're going to meet our power resource needs.
It's required of the investor-owned utilities, but not of the consumer-owned utilities, but we do it as a best practice.
And so really what it is, it is a tool that shows what is the least cost, lowest risk plan for meeting your power needs.
And it gives all of the different power resource possibilities, a menu of options, if you will.
And it arrives at a recommendation for how to meet our short-term and long-term power needs.
And the timing for our update to our integrated resource plan was in advance of making the recommendation to our board to execute the provider of choice contract with Bonneville, those post-2028 contracts that we just did.
Paul Ciampoli
In terms of the specifics of the plan, anything that you think our listeners might be interested in terms of the unique aspects of it?
Tracy Sutten
Ours went through each of the products.
What's not unique necessarily, we are a load following customer of Bonneville and we're full requirement, so we have no generation. All of our power is met by Bonneville.
Paul Ciampoli
And then also in preparing for the interview, one thing that jumped out at me is the fact that in early 2025, the utility began offering two new generator loan programs for its residential and small business electric customers.
Any additional details you can provide on those programs?
Tracy Sutten
I recommended that as a pilot program, and it was in response -- We had an ice storm in January 2024. It was unprecedented for us. We had an extended outage.
At the end of that ice storm, we did both an internal and an external after action report.
And a lot of the feedback that we were getting from customers was the need for…people to have personal preparedness -- and of course, for many, that's backup generation.
So I recommended and got approval from the board to do a pilot for a backup generator and transfer switch loan program.
So the original ask was 25 transfer switches and 25 generators.
It's important to note probably that 85% of our customers are electrically heated.
So of course, backup generators would help in those extended outages. But we also have some low income customers.
So I really wanted to try to remove a hurdle from those customers so that they could get generators.
The transfer switch -- a few took us up on that, but the generator was hugely popular, so 25 went fast. I went back to the board and was able to do another 25, so 50 generator loans were done.
They’re zero interest loans with the amount that was put on the customer's residential electric bill and then paid back over time, over 12 months.
Paul Ciampoli
And so these programs, are they shut at this point or are they ongoing?
Tracy Sutten
At this point, it was run as a pilot. Like I said, the 50 went really fast.
At this point now, what I'm doing is going through the lessons learned and seeing if we can do the program again with the lessons learned, just taking a look at ways that we can do better about how we administer the funds for the generators.
Paul Ciampoli
And another follow-up question.
I noticed in terms of the research for this, I believe you did an interview with a local TV station.
Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but other than that, any other methods that you use in terms of getting the word out on these programs?
Tracy Sutten
It was very popular. So the local television was wildly popular and then also our website and then social media was used.
Paul Ciampoli
Well, Tracy, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us today. We really appreciate it.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Public Power Now, which is produced by Julio Guerrero, graphic and digital designer at APPA.
