Nevada Power
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Nevada Power Company (NPC) was a
Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
-based company that produced, distributed, and sold electricity in the southern part of the
state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...
of
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
. In 2005, it had over 700,000 electric customers in parts of three Nevada counties — a service area of more than . In 1998, Nevada Power merged with Nevada's other major utility,
Sierra Pacific Resources NV Energy is a public utility which generates, transmits and distributes electric service in northern and southern Nevada, including the Las Vegas Valley, and provides natural gas service in the Reno – Sparks metropolitan area of northern Nev ...
. It continued as a subsidiary of Sierra Pacific until 2005, when the company changed its name to
NV Energy NV Energy is a public utility which generates, transmits and distributes electric service in northern and southern Nevada, including the Las Vegas Valley, and provides natural gas service in the Reno – Sparks metropolitan area of northern Neva ...
.


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 was acquired by
Centel Centel Corporation was an American telecommunications company, with primary interests in basic telephone service, cellular phone service and cable television service. Early history In 1900, Max McGraw took his savings from his newspaper ro ...
. It was later owned by
Sprint Sprint may refer to: Aerospace * Spring WS202 Sprint, a Canadian aircraft design *Sprint (missile), an anti-ballistic missile Automobiles *Alfa Romeo Sprint, automobile produced by Alfa Romeo between 1976 and 1989 *Chevrolet Sprint, a rebadged v ...
and
Embarq Embarq Corporation was the largest independent local exchange carrier in the United States (below the Regional Bell Operating Company, Baby Bells), serving customers in 18 states and providing local, long-distance, high-speed data and wireless s ...
, and is now part of
CenturyLink Lumen Technologies, Inc. (formerly CenturyLink, Inc.) is an American telecommunications company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, which offers communications, network services, security, cloud solutions, voice and managed services through it ...
. The power company became Southern Nevada Power. In 1937, it became one of the first utilities to receive power from the
Hoover Dam The Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado, Black Canyon of the Colorado River (U.S.), Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, d ...
. As the
Las Vegas Valley The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the Southern Nevada, southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan St ...
boomed in the 1950s, its power needs exceeded the power available from the dam, and Southern Nevada Power began building its own steam
turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical ...
s. After buying the Elko-Lamoille Power Company, it was renamed Nevada Power in 1961. A year later, it became the first Nevada company on the
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...
. In 1999, the company merged with Sierra Pacific Resources of
Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...
, the main electric and natural gas provider for northern Nevada. 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 The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) is a government agency that was founded in 1991 to manage Southern Nevada's water needs on a regional basis in Clark County. SNWA provides wholesale water treatment and delivery for the greater Las Vegas ...
. 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. In 2013 Berkshire Hathaway's MidAmerican Energy (now Berkshire Hathaway Energy) announced it would purchase NV Energy. MidAmerican and NV Energy say both companies' boards have approved the sale and they expect it to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to approval by regulators and NV Energy shareholders. The move will expand MidAmerican's customer base by over one million to 8.4 million worldwide and boost its assets to $66 billion.


Power plants

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 The Harry Allen Generating Station is a natural gas, natural gas fired Combined cycle power plant, combined cycle power plant located in Clark County, Nevada about north of Las Vegas. Electricity is generated by two GE Frame 7EA combustion turb ...
(144
megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...
s)
natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
fired unit, in 2006 a 100 kW
solar Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...
photovoltaic Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially ...
system will be added. 484 megawatt combined-cycle natural gas facility being added. **** Edward W. Clark Generating 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 Primm (formerly known as State Line) is an unincorporated town in Clark County, Nevada, United States, primarily notable for its position straddling Interstate 15 at the Nevada–California border. It sits on Ivanpah Dry Lake, which extends to ...
***Partial ownership **** Mohave Power Station (1,580 megawatts, 222 megawatts Nevada power's share, coal fired) (Shut down on December 31, 2005. Dismantling began in 2009.) **** Silverhawk Power Station (520 megawatt) natural gas fired located north of Las Vegas that is 25% co-owned by
Southern Nevada Water Authority The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) is a government agency that was founded in 1991 to manage Southern Nevada's water needs on a regional basis in Clark County. SNWA provides wholesale water treatment and delivery for the greater Las Vegas ...
****
Reid Gardner Generating Station Reid Gardner Generating Station was a 557 megawatt coal fired plant on located near Moapa, Nevada. It was named after former president of Southern Nevada Power Company (renamed Nevada Power Company in 1961), Reid Gardner. The plant was co-owne ...
– (557 megawatt)
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...
fired plant located near
Moapa, Nevada Moapa is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The population was 1,025 at the 2010 census. It is the largest town in Clark County by land area. Both the second and the third tallest ...
and 31% co-owned by the
California Department of Water Resources The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) is part of the California Natural Resources Agency and is responsible for the management and regulation of the State of California's water usage. The department was created in 1956 by Governor ...
**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 The Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado, Black Canyon of the Colorado River (U.S.), Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, d ...
provides about 355 megawatts to the Nevada Power system. Contrary to common belief, 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 California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
and
Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
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 A regional transmission organization (RTO) in the United States is an electric power transmission system operator (TSO) that coordinates, controls, and monitors a multi-state electric grid. The transfer of electricity between states is consider ...
RTO West, formally known as "Grid West


References


External links


Nevada Power Company website
{{Berkshire Hathaway Companies based in Las Vegas Electric power companies of the United States