Nevada Power Company

Nevada Power Company (NPC) was a Las Vegas-based company that produced, distributed, and sold electricity in the southern part of the state of Nevada. In 2005, it had over 700,000 electric customers in parts of three Nevada counties — a service area of more than 4000 sqmi. In 1998, Nevada Power merged with Nevada's other major utility, Sierra Pacific Resources. It continued as a subsidiary of Sierra Pacific until 2005, when the company changed its name to NV Energy.

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. It was later owned by Sprint and Embarq, and is now part of CenturyLink. The power company became Southern Nevada Power. In 1937, it became one of the first utilities to receive power from the Hoover Dam. As the Las Vegas Valley boomed 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 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 of Reno, 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.[1]

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.

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 (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.
• 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
• 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.)

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".

External links

• Nevada Power Company website