Nevada Power Company

Product Details

Historical Context

Nevada Power, and its predecessor companies, have been serving Las Vegas since March 20, 1906, the year following the creation of that town. The first company, Consolidated Power and Telephone operated until 1929 when it was split into Southern Nevada Power Company, which became Nevada Power, and Southern Nevada Telephone Company, which eventually became a part of Sprint, later spun off into Embarq.

After the acquisition of Elko-Lamoille Power Company in 1961 the company changed its name to the Nevada Power Company and became the first Nevada company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1999 the company merged with Sierra Pacific Resources. 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. However after the energy crisis in 2001, the deregulation was put on hold and Nevada Power resumed pursuing options to generate more of its own power.

In 2003 the company installed two of the largest phase shifting transformers in the world at its Crystal switching station to deal with the large quantity of imported power.

As a part of the plan to internally generate more of its power, Nevada Power in October, 2004 purchased from Duke Energy North America a partially competed 1,200 megawatt plant. Plans were announced on June 21, 2005 to purchase from Pinnacle West Capital Corporation its 75% interest in a 570 megawatt plant. The other 25% share is owned by the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

In January, 2006, Nevada Power announced plans to decommission units 1, 2, and 3 at the Clark Station which provided a total of 175 MW of power.

On September 22, 2008, Nevada Power Company began doing business as NV Energy. This is the result of the corporate decision to unify its image under a single brand.

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