LAS VEGAS, Jan. 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NV Energy
today formally requested that the Public Utilities Commission of
Nevada (PUCN) reconsider its
December 2016 decision in the Sierra
Pacific Power Company general rate case. The company is
required by Nevada law to file
detailed cost information every three years so the PUCN may set the
rates that northern Nevada
customers will pay for electricity and gas service. The
December 2016 PUCN order establishes
customer rates for the three-year period beginning January 1, 2017 ending December 31, 2019.
In October 2016, NV Energy worked with a broad coalition of
customers and intervenors in the rate case process to reach an
agreement to lower annual electricity rates for residential and
small general service customers by approximately $2.92 million annually, or a total of
$8.77 million over the three-year
period the current electricity rates are effective.
Importantly, the agreement provided that these cost savings would
be shared across a broad base of northern Nevada electric customers.
The December 2016 PUCN order
directs NV Energy to reallocate this savings to future new solar
net metering customers (1,250 if all residential). In its
filing made today, the company argues that the December order takes
the savings that were intended for a larger customer base and
directs them to this small subset of future solar net metering
customers.
The company's filing also notes that the decision to apply the
cost savings to this single class of private solar net metering
customers is inconsistent with the October
2016 agreement reached with the Regulatory Operations Staff
of the PUCN, the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Northern Nevada
Industrial Electric Users, Northern Nevada Utility Customers,
Newmont Mining, a coalition of local governmental entities,
Nevadans for Clean Affordable Reliable Energy and Vote
Solar.
In its filing today, NV Energy acknowledges the difficult
decisions the PUCN faced in a very complex legal proceeding that
was subject to significant evidence, testimony and diverging
viewpoints. The company commended the PUCN for acknowledging
in its order the following important findings:
- Net metering customers do not "go off the grid" and should be
treated as a separate class of customers because they use the
electric grid both to get and to deliver electricity to the
grid.
- The establishment of a fair and equitable pricing structure is
important to all Sierra Pacific
electric customers, including those who make the decision to
utilize private solar generation and those who do not.
- Credit for excess electricity energy that is delivered to the
grid by private generation solar customers should be valued at a
rate that is competitive with other solar options available to NV
Energy. The PUCN establishes that competitive rate, in the
short term, at 2.5 cents per kilowatt
hour.
The PUCN has 40 days to grant or deny the request.
NV Energy, Inc. provides a wide range of energy services to 1.3
million customers throughout Nevada and more than 40 million tourists
annually. NV Energy is a holding company whose principal
subsidiaries, Nevada Power Company and Sierra Pacific Power
Company, are doing business as NV Energy. The company is
headquartered in Las Vegas,
Nevada. Information about NV Energy is available on the
company's website, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages, which can
be accessed via nvenergy.com.
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SOURCE NV Energy