Editorial: Stability of power a priority

Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2002 | 9:10 a.m.

It was disappointing to learn last week that Duke Energy Corp. halted construction of its power plant in Moapa. The $600 million plant was halfway completed when Duke, citing a reduced demand for electricity, decided to stop. Duke had committed to set aside 25 percent of its power for Nevadans, and while there was no guarantee that its prices would be low, the conventional wisdom was that more power plants would create an abundant supply of power, which in turn would result in lower prices.

A Duke representative said it's possible that construction could resume once power market conditions change, but favorable conditions for Duke -- the ability to command higher prices for power -- would be bad news for residential and business customers. It's not just Duke that is scrapping plans to build power plants -- it's a situation faced by other companies, here and around the nation.

During the West's recent power crisis, which subsequent investigations revealed was manufactured in part by big energy suppliers who withheld power to drive up prices, Nevada officials said we should increase the number of power plants to reduce our reliance on big out-of-state producers. Ideally, what would happen is Nevada Power would build more power plants. We likely would have to pay somewhat more for electricity in the short term, but over the long term our prices would be more stable and not take us on the roller coaster ride we've experienced in Nevada.

Unfortunately, Nevada Power's shaky financial condition makes it unlikely that it will be building new power plants anytime soon. One good argument made on behalf of the Southern Nevada Water Authority's takeover bid for Nevada Power is that the government agency could build new plants because of its good credit rating. It's still unclear whether the water authority should take over the electric company based on that advantage alone, but what is certain is that, as of now, Nevadans are at the mercy of out-of-state power suppliers.