Gas

Nevada regulators approve 400 MW gas-fired peaker

Tech giant Google opposed the capacity addition.
Nevada regulators approve 400 MW gas-fired peaker

Utility regulators in Nevada approved a plan by NV Energy to spend $333 million to buy, install and operate a 400 MW peaking turbine project at the Silverhawk Generating Station near Las Vegas.

The turbine would have a peak summer rating of 444 MW including wet compression and would enter service in July 2024.

The utility would spend another $20 million on transmission upgrades to connect the plant to its regional grid.

The utility said that even though it was adding fossil fueled generation, it was not deviating from its clean energy goals and the state’s overall sustainability goals.

The utility told regulators that firm dispatchable resources like the peaking plant would contribute more to capacity in 2050 than to energy production, resulting in what it said would be a positive impact on resource adequacy with “minimal carbon dioxide emissions.”

NV Energy said the combustion turbine would be capable of operating on 15% hydrogen and that the original equipment manufacturing was “planning a path toward allowing these units to operate on 100 percent hydrogen.”

The turbines’ air permit application would limit their use to 700 hours annually.

‘New normal’

The utility said that resource adequacy risks in Nevada and across the West have been “evolving” since 2020. It pointed to significant heat events as well as shifts in weather and rapid changes in resource mix. 

It said that wildfires in 2021 resulted in the loss of 5,500 MW of transmission capacity from the Pacific AC and DC interties. NV Energy told its regulators that concerns regardingclimate-related events would continue as “the new normal.”

Tech giant Google opposed the capacity addition. It said in part that NV Energy should more thoroughly vet the planning use of hydrogen at the Silverhawk location. Google said that if hydrogen is produced using existing grid resources, then overall emissions could grow. It said that such an outcome would “underscore the need for strong standards and system planning practices around hydrogen’s production and use.”

Commission staff said that during an August 2020 heat wave, NV Energy experienced “unprecedented” firm market curtailments with as much as 1,243 MW curtailed. That amount was around 15% of the NV Energy Balancing Area Authority peak load and on par with the utility’s entire planning reserve margin.

During that heat event, NV Energy had to rely entirely on the Northwest Power Pool for all of its reserve margin for four hours. As a result, the Power Pool revised its rules to limit NV Energy’s reserve sharing to just one hour.

Those events led staff to argue that more internal generating capacity would be useful because firm market power purchases “are no longer always guaranteed.” 

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