Dive Brief:
- NV Energy is expanding its Green Energy Rider to allow customers with 1 MW of demand or greater to source 50% or 100% of their electricity supply from solar energy. The generation will come from a new utility-scale photovoltaic solar power plant the utility will develop for these customers.
- A subsidiary of the Warren Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway Energy, NV Energy will add the solar generation to its 1.3 GW of renewable capacity to assure it Green Rider customers the $0.28/kWh to $0.47/kWh premium rate they will pay is supporting additional clean generation.
- In 2015, NV Energy South was 21.2% renewables and NV Energy North was 31.3% renewables. The utility is planning two 150 MW solar plants and has a 179 MW project in construction. But its solar plans remain controversial after a deep cut to the net energy metering credit for rooftop solar owners.
Dive Insight:
NV Energy’s current renewables portfolio comes from 20 geothermal plants, 12 community-scale solar arrays, a wind project, and 12 small hydro and biomass facilities.
NV Energy’s Green Energy Rider and Duke Energy’s Green Source Rider, a similar effort to serve companies with sustainability and clean energy company goals, have been successful in retaining large customers in the utility programs and attracting new ones.
Both programs allow the customers to replace some or all of their utility-delivered electricity with generation from renewables. By administering the programs themselves, the utilities avoid at least some of the lost revenue resulting from the customers contracting with independent power producers for generation from non-utility-owned wind and solar projects.
NV Energy’s Green Rider was created after data center provider Switch SUPERNAP, which represents as much as 2% of the utility’s load, threatened to leave NV Energy's grid. Instead, the utility and Switch agreed to the regulator-approved rider, which grew into the program.
