River Commission claims Nevada Power owes $5 mil.

Kevin Rademacher

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 | 11:12 a.m.

The growing dispute between Nevada Power Co. and the Colorado River Commission took another twist Monday.

The River Commission, a state agency that provides electricity to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission claiming Nevada Power owes about $5 million for positive energy imbalances.

The claim comes two months after Nevada Power filed a complaint with FERC claiming the CRC conspired with Enron Corp. to manipulate energy markets and damage the Las Vegas electric company.

The new complaint claims Nevada Power unlawfully confiscated or underpaid the commission for excess electricity contributed to the local system. It appears to contradict claims Nevada Power made that the commission was requesting excess power to sell at a profit into California markets with help from Enron.

When adequate prices were not available, Nevada Power claimed, the commission dumped the electricity on the local system. That move, the utility claimed, caused Nevada Power to sell the energy at a disadvantage and jeopardized reliability by creating an oversupply. The CRC denied those claims and said that the utility's tariff should have protected it from such a scheme.

In other Nevada Power developments, state regulators are expected this week to throw out most of the requests to modify or clarify their rulings in two Nevada Power Co. rate cases decided in March.

The state Bureau of Consumer Protection last month asked the Public Utilities Commission to reconsider portions of its ruling on the utility's general rate case request for $133.5 million in additional annual revenue from ratepayers. Nevada Power also asked for clarification of several items that were not allowed to be recovered.

A draft order that the full commission is expected to debate Wednesday recommends the approval of just one point, the BCP's challenge of the treatment of about $1.6 million in rental revenue related to the sale last year of property on Flamingo Road.

If the item is approved, the company's additional annual revenue will be trimmed to about $46 million. The change will have no tangible effect on a 9 percent rate increase that went into effect April 1. That increase also included $169 million Nevada Power will be allowed to pass on to customers for higher past and future power costs.

The BCP's original filing sought to increase the disallowance by about $10 million. Also, Nevada Power asked the PUC to clarify portions of the ruling that rejected some amounts.

Nevada Power sought clarification of the commission's reasoning in rejecting the inclusion of $100 million the utility received from its parent company -- Sierra Pacific Resources -- as equity. The decision cut the additional annual revenue approved for Nevada Power by $3 million.

That request was ignored in the draft order issued Monday.

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