Nevada Power Company

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Nevada Power Company headquarters in Las Vegas

Nevada Power Company is a Las Vegas-based company that produces, distributes and sells electricity in southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of 2005, Nevada Power had over 700,000 electric customers in parts of three Nevada counties creating a service area of more than 4,000 square miles (10,000 km2). The company is currently a subsidiary of NV Energy.

As of April 2009, NV Energy the parent company, has 10 natural gas fired generating plants, two coal-fired generating plants and is co-developing a wind generating facility, a geothermal facility and a waste heat recovery plant. With its purchase power agreements, NV Energy – on a per-customer basis – leads the nation in the use of solar and geothermal renewable resources.[citation needed]

History

Nevada Power was founded on March 20, 1906 as Consolidated Power and Telephone, the electric and telephone company for the year-old town of Las Vegas. It split into two companies in 1929. The telephone company, Southern Nevada Telephone Company, eventually became a subsidiary of Sprint and is now part of CenturyLink. The power company became Southern Nevada Power. It was the first utility to receive power from Hoover Dam in 1937. As the Las Vegas Valley exploded in the 1950s, its power needs exceeded the power available from the dam, and Southern Nevada Power began building its own steam turbines. After buying the Elko-Lamoille Power Company, it was renamed as Nevada Power in 1961. A year later, it became the first Nevada company on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1999 the company merged with Sierra Pacific Resources. The merged company retained the Sierra Pacific name, but moved its headquarters to Las Vegas.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Nevada Power held off on building new plants and was looking to divest its existing plants based on Nevada's deregulation of power generation and distribution. However after the energy crisis in 2001, the deregulation was put on hold and Nevada Power resumed pursuing options to generate more of its own power.

In 2003 the company installed two of the largest phase shifting transformers in the world at its Crystal switching station to deal with the large quantity of imported power.

As a part of the plan to internally generate more of its power, Nevada Power in October, 2004 purchased from Duke Energy North America a partially competed 1,200 megawatt plant. Plans were announced on June 21, 2005 to purchase from Pinnacle West Capital Corporation its 75% interest in a 570 megawatt plant. The other 25% share is owned by the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

In January, 2006, Nevada Power announced plans to decommission units 1, 2, and 3 at the Clark Station which provide a total of 175 MW of power.

On September 22, 2008, Nevada Power Company began doing business as NV Energy. This is the result of the corporate decision to unify its image under a single brand.[1]

Power plants

Mohave Generating Station
Reid Gardner Generating Station

In the early years, power was generated by the company. However, in 1914 the company contracted to purchase power from other companies. This practice continued until the 1950s when the company again started running power plants to provide a portion of its base supply.

  • Current plants include:
    • Base plants
      • Wholly owned
        • Harry Allen Generating Station (144 megawatts) natural gas fired unit, in 2006 a 100 kW solar photovoltaic system will be added. 484 megawatt combined-cycle natural gas facility being added.
        • Clark Station (1084 megawatts - 10 units). In January 2005, plans announced to shut down units 1, 2 and 3. Opened in February 1956 was a 32 megawatt plant. A 75 kW (3-25 kW arrays) high concentrating solar photovoltaic system was added in 2006. (located in Clark Country)
        • Chuck Lenzie (1,102 megawatts - 4 natural gas fired units) located north of Las Vegas
        • Walter M. Higgins Generating Station – 530 megawatt natural gas peaking plant located near Primm, Nevada
      • Partial ownership
    • Peaking plants
      • Harry Allen (80 megawatts) in planning
      • Sunrise/Sun Peak (150 megawatts) natural gas fired peaking plant located in Las Vegas
  • Other notable sources
    • Hoover Dam provides about 355 megawatts to the Nevada Power system. Contrary to popular opinion, Las Vegas does not get most of its power from the dam. It also does not get most of the power produced at the dam. California and Arizona get most of the dam's generated power.

Power transmission

Several generating stations are located in Nevada Power's service area. In addition, Nevada power historically imported a large portion of its power from other areas. As a result, the company's main transmission lines both serve its customers and provide inter-company power transport services.

  • Major power lines:
    • 500 kV
  • Major switch yards
    • Mead Substation
    • Crystal Substation

Regional Transmission Organizations

Nevada Power is a member of the Regional Transmission Organization RTO West, formally known as "Grid West" .

References

  1. ↑ "Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power Renamed NV Energy" (Press release). Sierra Pacific Resources. 2008-09-22. Retrieved 2008-09-22. 

External links

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