(Photo: Hugh Jackson/Nevada Current)
A legal effort to derail NV Energy’s attempt to change the way it calculates customers’ bills will be heard in Clark County District Court, Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled Tuesday. Holthus rejected a motion filed by the utility and the Public Utilities Commission to consolidate the case with another filed in Carson City.
“I’m not going to grant the motion to transfer at this point,” Holthus said. “I just don’t think there’s a reason to, based upon the totality of it.”
In September, the PUC approved NV Energy’s application for a $119 million rate hike to be achieved by imposing a peak demand charge on residential and small business customers in Southern Nevada and changing the way net metering credits are calculated for some Northern Nevada ratepayers.
NV Energy’s plan calls for calculating net usage – the difference between energy consumption and the excess energy generated by a rooftop solar system – every 15 minutes rather than monthly for Northern Nevada customers who install solar after Oct. 1, 2025.
The change is projected to increase monthly bills for those customers by about $11 a month. It’s also expected to deter future investment in rooftop solar, because it delays the return on investment in the system, say clean energy advocates.
NV Energy contends the change is intended to reduce the disparity between rooftop solar and full-service customers, who subsidize solar customers to the tune of $50 million a year, according to the utility.
In Southern Nevada, the PUC approved NV Energy’s bid to base residential and small business power bills on peak demand – the 15 minutes of the day with the highest electricity usage, beginning in April.
No other investor-owned electric utility in the U.S. mandates a peak demand charge.
The PUC doubled down in November, rejecting petitions for reconsideration filed by the Attorney General’s Bureau of Consumer Protection and several intervening parties who argued the billing changes are prohibited by state law.
In late November, Vote Solar, a non-profit solar advocacy organization, filed a petition for judicial review in Carson City. In December, the BCP and other parties, including several large casinos, filed a similar petition in Clark County.
Nevada law, the BCP argues, prohibits the PUC from approving a rate that “requires a residential customer to purchase electric service at a rate which is based on the time of day, day of the week or time of year” unless the customer chooses to do so.
The PUC’s order approving NV Energy’s application acknowledges the demand charge “varies based on the time during which the electricity is used.”
Additionally, the BCP contends another law prohibits the utility from charging “solar generators” (primarily rooftop solar customers) “any fee or charge that is different than that charged to other customers of the utility in the rate class” to which the customer would belong if they did not have a net metering system.
Attorneys for the PUC and NV Energy argued Tuesday that consolidating the BCP’s case with one filed by Vote Solar would prevent conflicting rulings and conserve court resources.
The petitions “both arise from the same commission order, same consolidated dockets and depend on the same voluminous administrative record,” PUC attorney Jill C. Davis told Holthus.
“Absent the transfer, two different courts are independently going to review the same record, the same legal questions for the most part, and potentially issue inconsistent rulings on those issues.”
Holthus rejected the argument but suggested Vote Solar, which did not attend the hearing, consolidate its case with the BCP’s in Las Vegas.
