With Nevada’s utility, NV Energy, planning to build a 5 million power plant, Las Vegas casinos want options made available for power generation.
NV Energy wants to build and start generating power from the proposed 707-megawatt plant by 2020, and representatives for casinos in southern Nevada want the utility to detail competitive alternatives, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.
The utility wants the state to provide $2.4 million to research the proposed power plant in order to replace energy currently provided by Star West Generation’s Griffith Energy Plant. The utility’s contract with Star West Generation ends in 2017, and that means the loss of more than 500 megawatts of power.
Representatives of southern Nevada casinos have asked state officials to require the utility to provide a list of competitive alternatives to its power generation as part of any state agreement to help the utility with its project.
Casino officials are concerned about the cost of the proposed $956 million power plant and its potential impact on utility rates. Several already are working to end their power agreements with NV Energy in favor of more affordable and sustainable solar energy and natural gas.
To do that, Las Vegas casinos would have to pay more than $130 million in combined fees against future rate usage in order to offset costs that NV Energy’s residential and commercial customers otherwise would have to absorb via rate increases.
But with the proposed power plant, NV Energy’s customers, including the casinos, likely would pay for about 35 percent of the total costs over a 35-year period, the Nevada Policy Research Institute reported.
MGM Resorts International, Wynn Las Vegas, and Las Vegas Sands are reluctant to pay the $130 million fee demanded by the utility to leave, but the cost they would bear as future NV Energy customers if the power plant if built might amount to more.
