Bill Edmonds is an energy expert with deep experience in both the public and private sectors and is bringing his experience this term to the PSU classroom as an adjunct professor. Edmonds has seen the complex energy sector from the utility perspective and from the perspective of regulating utilities. Most recently, he served as the Executive Director of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council – an organization that was created by the US Congress to develop a power plan for the region and to compile a program to mitigate the impacts of the hydro system on fish and wildlife.
Edmonds’ first-hand experience in the sector will complement a set of guests carefully drawn from government, private energy companies, and the non-profit sector to provide a broad understanding of the sector and its most pressing current issues.
Edmonds served as the Executive Director of the Council until April 2025. Prior to the Council, he served as director of environmental management and sustainability at NW Natural, and prior to that he worked for the multi-state electric utility PacifiCorp as director of environmental policy. He began his energy experience as a staff member for the California Public Utilities Commission, the agency responsible for regulating California’s utilities.
Besides this professional experience, Edmonds has served on a long list of non-profit organizations working on energy issues, including the Oregon Environmental Council, the Climate Trust, Earth Advantage, and PECI. He currently serves on the board of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.
The list of energy challenges facing the region is large, and each is intertwined with many others. This course will dive deeply into these vexing issues, which include: load growth from a variety of sources (including data centers), increasing reliance on intermittent resources like wind and solar, difficulty in siting facilities, electrifying transportation, and others. With his experience and his ability to pull in fresh case studies from the sector, Edmonds will bring practical experience to facilitating the complex and fast-changing conversation around energy.
In his time off, you’ll find Edmonds climbing Portland’s hills on his bike, hiking to the tree line in the Cascades, and growing vegetables at a nearby community garden. He lives in NE Portland with his wife Holly, a school counselor, and they have two grown sons.
Edmonds has an undergraduate degree in Political Science from Williams College and a master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley.