by Dana Gentry, Nevada Current
NV Energy is asking regulators to approve its plan to convert its sole remaining coal-fired power plant to natural gas, buy solar production facilities and a battery-storage operation at a cost of $1.8 billion.
“The amendment reflects the best path forward to balance the stability and reliability of our energy grid while working toward the goal of reducing carbon emissions,” NV Energy President and CEO Doug Cannon said in a news release.
“Serving Nevada’s rural customers is a critical priority, and the proposed option delivers a reliable and cost-effective option to serve a more remote location that also reduces carbon emissions to respond appropriately to the region’s energy demands,” he said of plans to convert the Valmy plant in northwest Nevada from coal to natural gas.
The utility says the solar facility will provide “critical renewable generation to offset the loss of other renewable energy projects that are now not being developed.” The utility says it “worked diligently” but was unable to salvage those projects.
The request is the utility’s fifth amendment to its integrated resource plan (IRP) filed in 2021.
With the next plan due in 2024 and ratepayers already struggling with record-high utility bills, critics are asking what’s the rush?
“If it can’t wait, I think it begs the question why it wasn’t included in the plan two years ago because the situation has not changed so dramatically, as to be considered sort of unforeseen circumstances. We’re pretty upset by it,” says Sarah Steinberg of Advanced Energy United, a business association of clean energy companies. “I think there’s a lot of things that stand out to us as problematic, both within the plan but really importantly, within the process used to come up with the plan.”
Steinberg says NV Energy has failed to get the best deals for its customers by short-circuiting resource planning processes.
“We have been tracking NV Energy’s use, or lack thereof, of competitive procurement processes, meaning they go to market and ask developers to bring them their best, most innovative, lowest-cost projects, giving the utility options to consider and package resources,” Steinberg says. “But NV energy hasn’t done that here.”
Steinberg says the utility has “refreshed their request for proposals and expects results in August, but hasn’t waited to see what’s out there before filing this plan.”
The utility is asking regulators to approve:
the Sierra Solar/Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at a cost of $1.5 billion transmission infrastructure to support the Sierra Solar/BESS project at a cost of $71 millionconversion of the Valmy coal-fired plant to natural gas at a cost of $83 million purchase of Crescent Valley project for future development of a Solar/BESS project at a cost of $13 millionconstruction transmission infrastructure for Esmeralda and Amargosa substations and the Apex Area Master Plan at a cost of $174 million
The total cost is approximately $1.841 billion, according to NV Energy.
Assemblyman Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas), who this year sponsored a bill that limits NV Energy’s ability to obtain amendments to the IRP process, says the proposals contained in the utility’s latest amendment are substantial.
“With five major amendments proposed in the two years since the 2021 IRP, this is why AB 524 tasked the PUCN with clarifying when amendments are, and are not, appropriate,” Watts said via email. “I would ultimately like to see more of these proposals incorporated up-front in the triennial Integrated Resource Plan.”
Operating outside the IRP process “deprives the plan of a comprehensive review and pushes it through an expedited review, which gives intervenors less time to look at the options,” Steinberg said.
NV Energy’s emphasis of late has been on building or buying its own production facilities. Its fourth amendment, approved earlier this year, allowed for the construction of a gas-fired peaker plant at a cost of $333 million.
Steinberg questions the utility’s continued reliance on natural gas-fired power, given its price volatility in the last year.
“Competitive procurement processes are open to all sorts of ownership structures,” says Steinberg, whose organization has a vested interest in promoting renewable sources.
But in a news release, the utility says it “evaluated multiple resource options as part of its planning process to address the energy needs of Nevada in a cost-effective and sustainable way,” adding the amendment keeps it “on track” to meet statutory requirements that half of its energy come from renewable sources by 2030 and all by 2050.
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