Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

LEGISLATURE:

Power struggle: Can advocates for solar energy, consumer issues prevail in Nevada?

NV Energy solar protest rally

AP Photo / John Locher

Protestors, including Ronald Brittan, right, line up along the street during a rally in front of NV Energy Wednesday, April 22, 2015, in Las Vegas. Hundreds of activists gathered outside NV Energy headquarters in Las Vegas to protest a state cap affecting rooftop solar installations and urge the Legislature to lift it.

Energy policy is a dominant talking point for prominent special interest groups this legislative session. But few bills are anchoring their conversations, leaving lobbyists with limited options for policy changes to be made this session.

A cohort of gaming, tech and renewable energy groups wants the Legislature to fund an interim study on power sales, implement safeguards for a growing rooftop solar industry, define clear-cut duties for the Public Utilities Commission and increase efforts to help reduce consumption by consumers. But with taxes and education reform on the table, there is little legislative momentum to do it.

Much of what the lobbyists want has not been placed in legislative proposals. But some hope it could be tucked into a few existing bill drafts. As the session nears its final few weeks, however, the special interest request is one that will unlikely be met with open arms.

After the 2014 GOP election wave, lobbyists — accustomed to working within Democratic leadership in past sessions — have been dealing with a Republican majority and a swath of freshman lawmakers unfamiliar with the history of Nevada’s energy policy.

“We are challenged because we don’t have legislators with a great deal of experience in these issues in leadership position,” Rose McKinney-James, a lobbyist and board member of the Clean Energy Project, said. “The education curve is steep.”

That learning curve — along with debates on education and taxes — is creating what lobbyists describe as an impasse that may stunt growth of solar businesses and impede Nevada’s potential as a leader in renewable energy production and consumption. There have been calls for a special session to deal with the energy debate, mimicking a 2005 move in which lawmakers worked on renewable energy policy after the 120-day session ended. But amid ongoing debate on whether the Legislature will approve tax hikes and bolster education funding, a session devoted to energy policy is unlikely.

The inertia this session, lobbyists say, also is the product of NV Energy, the state’s power provider, which fields an army of lobbyists and enjoys close ties to Gov. Brian Sandoval.

This year the utility has thwarted legislative attempts by the solar industry to increase a cap on a policy known as net metering, which offers consumers a credit for installing solar panels on their rooftops, powering their homes and providing energy to the grid. The policy never received a public hearing and was only debated in closed-door meetings. The solar industry has paid for a poll, TV ads and billboards, has staged a rally and won national media attention. But its efforts have produced little progress.

The utility, though, has championed reducing its carbon footprint and buying solar energy with the aid of legislation over the past decade, revoking plans to build a new coal fired power plant, shutting down existing coal generation and buying more than 1,300 megawatts of solar generation.

But critics are still skeptical of the power company’s long-term goals.

“Thoughtful, long-term energy policy comes from open and honest debate in front of policymakers, regulators and the general public,” Robert Uithoven, a lobbyist for The Alliance for Solar Choice, said. “For the protection of all ratepayers, the thousands of solar jobs in Nevada and the hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy investments in our state, we continue urging that this open process takes place before the 2015 legislative session concludes."

The call for action intersects with recent headlines that show a willingness by tech, solar and gaming to shake the status quo. What they foresee is a world where consumers and big business rely less and less on the utility.

The model for power consumption and generation — long panned as a regulated monopoly — is changing across the country, Bob List, former GOP governor and current lobbyist for SolarCity, said.

“Nevada is at the epicenter,” he said.

Another policy issue concerning lobbyists aligns with the efforts by data storage company Switch and the state’s top casino and resort operators to seek approval by the PUC to generate their own electricity with a mix of solar and other natural resources.

The ability to unhook from NV Energy’s generation supplies stems from a 2001 law that says companies that consume more than 1 megawatt of energy per year can pay an exit fee to leave the utility. Known as direct access, the policy was passed when energy prices were high, the utility didn’t own much infrastructure and its demand was rapidly growing along with the state’s population. Mining companies Barrick Gold and Newmont Mining took advantage of the law. The former built its own natural gas plant and the latter built a coal-fired power plant.

While energy prices, population growth and NV Energy holdings have all changed with the times, the laws have not. But several companies — Switch, Wynn Resorts, MGM Resorts International, Las Vegas Sands — are willing to pay millions in exit fees in order to create their own power. There are questions looming for ratepayers about the potential to increase utility bills if the state’s biggest power consumers no longer need NV Energy. A study, advocates say, could help put an end to the lingering questions about the effect of leaving NV Energy’s power supply.

Switch, whose energy consumption is 34 megawatts per year, is waiting for the PUC to determine what it would have to pay to protect ratepayers. The utility and the data company are haggling over a rate from $18 million to $27 million. The company, which houses data for companies like eBay, Google and Cisco, wants to operate off of 100 percent green energy and has vowed to invest in solar if it is able to produce its own power.

“Switch executives have been meeting with NV Energy leadership for the past two years to find the win-win solution for our market to be able to purchase green energy at competitive pricing,” Rob Roy, Switch founder and CEO, said. “The present and future realities mandate social responsibility as well as market innovation. The earth’s environment does not have the luxury of waiting years for us to figure this out. We are optimistic that we can find the right answer for the right reasons.”

The third leg of Nevada’s energy debate is energy efficiency. Republicans killed a bill earlier this session that asked NV Energy to boost incentives — credits for building energy efficient homes and buying new washers, windows and freezers — to ratepayers as a way to cut 1 percent from its total megawatt hours sold to consumers. The bill didn’t order NV Energy to cut the 1 percent. But it did say that if NV Energy made the deduction, the utility could recoup 105 percent of the cost of doing so.

Sen. Patricia Spearman, D-North Las Vegas, backed the effort and says that consumers need to be educated on small-scale ways to cut back energy costs.

“For every kilowatt you don’t use, it’s a kilowatt you don’t have to produce,” she said.

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