Details of Switch deal with Nevada Power emerge
CARSON CITY — Elements of a deal struck by Switch and Nevada Power Co. to keep by the data storage company as a customer of the utility for at least the next three years are detailed in a new filing with the state Public Utilities Commission.
The Aug. 8 filing, posted Thursday on the PUC website, would allow Switch’s growing energy load be served from a new 100-megawatt solar photovoltaic project to be constructed by First Solar, north of Las Vegas. The new solar facility is proposed to go into commercial operation in late 2016 and be named Switch Station.
It would deliver renewable energy to the NV Energy transmission and distribution grid and allow Switch to achieve one of its goals of serving its Southern Nevada customers with all renewable energy resources. Nevada Power is a subsidiary of NV Energy.
Switch was the first large Nevada company in recent years to seek to leave Nevada Power and purchase its own electricity on the wholesale market. The PUC however, in a vote in June, rejected the company’s “exit” application even with a $27 million “exit” fee to cover the utility’s infrastructure development in part to provide the company with its energy needs. Following that vote, Switch and Nevada Power worked out an agreement to keep the company as a customer of the utility, which is expected to benefit all Nevada Power customers.
Without Switch as a customer, the filing says Nevada Power would need another customer of similar size “to protect customers from an increase in rates.”
The filing requests action by the PUC by Oct. 5. The overall settlement agreement was approved by the PUC last month but other elements of the agreement require separate approvals.
Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801.