Power for the People, in New Plants

Aug 13 - Las Vegas Review - Journal

By John G. Edwards

Nevada Power Co. broke ground Thursday on a $400 million, natural gas-fired power plant in southeast Las Vegas as it races to keep up with population growth in Southern Nevada.

The number of customers served by the utility grew by 3.2 percent over the past six months to 815,000. That's a fast pace for an electric utility but slower than the 5.1 percent growth in the prior year before the local home sales boom screeched to a halt.

"We really haven't been able to enjoy any big slowdown (in growth)," Nevada Power President Donald "Pat" Shalmy told about 50 community leaders attending the groundbreaking.

Nevada Power has invested $1 billion in new power plants the past few years, not counting the $400 million committed to building the Clark Generating Station Peaking Units, said Roberto Denis, senior vice president of Nevada Power parent Sierra Pacific Resources.

The 600-megawatt Clark Generating Station addition replaces demolished gas-fired units that had 175 megawatts of generating capacity at the power plant near the southeast corner of Russell Road and U.S. Highway 95. The new plants will emit less than one- third of the amount of air pollution that the old units did, Denis said.

The electric company needs to continue building new power plants to keep up with growth and avoid having to rely on wholesale power markets, Denis said. Nevada Power executives and state regulators still smart from the turmoil during the Western energy crisis of 2000-01, when wholesale power prices soared and caused retail rates to jump.

Hiding from the blazing sun under a broad-rimmed straw hat, Jo Ann Kelly, chairwoman of the Public Utilities Commission, said she fears growth in the Southwest will catch up with power supplies, driving prices higher again.

Kelly recalled that she believed that relying on the wholesale market for power supplies was the right choice a couple of decades ago. Then, wholesale power was a cheap alternative to raising rates to build new utility-owned power plants, she said.

She said she worries that Southwest wholesale prices will jump again because power production capacity is rising more slowly than demand for power.

The new power plant units will be used when demand for power peaks. Nevada Power intends to start commercial operation of 200 megawatts of the 600-megawatt project before next summer.