Section 704.741 - Plan to increase supply or decrease demands: Submission not less than triennially; joint plans by certain affiliated utilities; contents prescribed by regulation; requirements1. A utility which supplies electricity in this State shall, on or before June 1 of every third year, or more often if necessary, in the manner specified by the Commission, submit a plan to increase its supply of electricity or decrease the demands made on its system by its customers to the Commission. Two or more utilities that are affiliated through common ownership and that have an interconnected system for the transmission of electricity shall submit a joint plan.2. The Commission shall, by regulation: (a) Prescribe the contents of such a plan, including, but not limited to, the methods or formulas which are used by the utility or utilities to:(1) Forecast the future demands, except that a forecast of the future retail electric demands of the utility or utilities must not include the amount of energy and capacity proposed pursuant to subsection 6 as annual limits on the total amount of energy and capacity that eligible customers may be authorized to purchase from providers of new electric resources through transactions approved by the Commission pursuant to an application submitted pursuant to NRS 704B.310 on or after May 16, 2019; and(2) Determine the best combination of sources of supply to meet the demands or the best method to reduce them;(b) Designate renewable energy zones and revise the designated renewable energy zones as the Commission deems necessary; and(c) Establish requirements governing the manner in which and circumstances under which an amendment may be filed with the Commission to modify an approved plan.3. The Commission shall require the utility or utilities to include in the plan:(a) An energy efficiency program for residential customers which reduces the consumption of electricity or any fossil fuel and which includes, without limitation, the use of new solar thermal energy sources.(b) A proposal for the expenditure of not less than 10 percent of the total expenditures related to energy efficiency and conservation programs on energy efficiency measures for customers of the electric utility in low-income households and residential customers and public schools in historically underserved communities, through both targeted programs and programs directed at residential customers and public schools in general.(c) A comparison of a diverse set of scenarios of the best combination of sources of supply to meet the demands or the best methods to reduce the demands, which must include: (1) At least one scenario of low carbon dioxide emissions that:(I) Uses sources of supply that result in, by 2050, an amount of energy production from zero carbon dioxide emission resources that equals the forecasted demand for electricity by customers of the utility;(II) Includes the deployment of distributed generation; and(III) If the plan is submitted on or before June 1, 2027, uses sources of supply that result in, by the year 2030, an 80 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from the generation of electricity to meet the demands of customers of the utility as compared to the amount of such emissions in the year 2005.(2) At least one scenario that provides for the construction or acquisition of energy resources through contract or ownership to be placed into service to close an open position utilizing dedicated energy resources in this State and dedicated energy resources delivered through firm transmission. A significant share of the renewable energy facilities and energy storage systems included in the scenario must be owned by the utility. A requirement to include a particular scenario in the plan pursuant to this paragraph, or the compliance of a utility with such a requirement, shall not be construed as indicating a preference by the Commission or the utility for a particular scenario.
(d) An analysis of the effects of the requirements of NRS 704.766 to 704.776, inclusive, on the reliability of the distribution system of the utility or utilities and the costs to the utility or utilities to provide electric service to all customers. The analysis must include an evaluation of the costs and benefits of addressing issues of reliability through investment in the distribution system.(e) A list of the utility's or utilities' assets described in NRS 704.7338.(f) A surplus asset retirement plan as required by NRS 704.734.4. For each scenario considered pursuant to subsection 3, the plan must include, without limitation: (a) For each energy resource proposed: (1) A description of each energy resource to be constructed, acquired or contracted for by the utility, including, without limitation, the location of the energy resource, the technology to be used by the energy resource to generate electricity, the anticipated capacity of the energy resource and the anticipated date by which the energy resource will be placed into service;(2) The cost of constructing or acquiring, operating and maintaining the energy resource or, if the energy resource is contracted for by the utility, the price of the energy to be supplied by the energy resource;(3) Whether the energy resource will be owned by the utility or utilized by the utility pursuant to a contract with a third party; and(4) Any other information required by the Commission to evaluate the prudence of the scenario.(b) An evaluation of the impact that the implementation of the scenario will have on: (1) The ability of the utility to decrease its reliance on market purchases to meet the utility's open energy load requirements, including, without limitation, any appropriate reserves, and the forecast of energy needs over the next 10 years;(2) The ability of the utility to reliably integrate into its supply portfolio larger amounts of electricity from variable energy resources, including, without limitation, solar, geothermal, hydropower and wind energy resources;(3) The ability of the utility to access energy markets or geographic locations that have excess capacity to import into this State through firm transmission to ensure additional reliability in times of increased energy needs;(4) The ability of the utility to increase access to carbon-free energy, support compliance with the renewable portfolio standard and advance the goals for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions set forth in NRS 445B.380 and 704.7820 through a balanced portfolio of energy supply and demand-side resources;(5) The ability of the utility to demonstrate to a regional entity that the utility has adequate resources to meet the forecast for energy needs over the next 10 years;(6) The ability of the utility to advance cost-effective demand-side management;(7) The rates charged to the customers of the utility, provided that, in implementing the plan, the utility must endeavor to mitigate costs for the benefit of customers to the extent possible by utilizing federal funding and tax credits available to utilities or third parties for the development of electric resources; and(8) The benefits from high-quality jobs, job training and apprenticeships provided by the projects included in the plan, whether constructed or operated by the utility or a third-party developer.5. The Commission shall require the utility or utilities to include in the plan a distributed resources plan. The distributed resources plan must: (a) Evaluate the locational benefits and costs of distributed resources. This evaluation must be based on reductions or increases in local generation capacity needs, avoided or increased investments in distribution infrastructure, safety benefits, reliability benefits and any other savings the distributed resources provide to the electricity grid for this State or costs to customers of the electric utility or utilities.(b) Propose or identify standard tariffs, contracts or other mechanisms for the deployment of cost-effective distributed resources that satisfy the objectives for distribution planning.(c) Propose cost-effective methods of effectively coordinating existing programs approved by the Commission, incentives and tariffs to maximize the locational benefits and minimize the incremental costs of distributed resources.(d) Identify any additional spending necessary to integrate cost-effective distributed resources into distribution planning consistent with the goal of yielding a net benefit to the customers of the electric utility or utilities.(e) Identify barriers to the deployment of distributed resources, including, without limitation, safety standards related to technology or operation of the distribution system in a manner that ensures reliable service.(f) Include a transportation electrification plan as required by NRS 704.7867.6. The Commission shall require the utility or utilities to include in the plan a proposal for annual limits on the total amount of energy and capacity that eligible customers may be authorized to purchase from providers of new electric resources through transactions approved by the Commission pursuant to an application submitted pursuant to NRS 704B.310 on or after May 16, 2019. In developing the proposal and the forecasts in the plan, the utility or utilities must use a sensitivity analysis that, at a minimum, addresses load growth, import capacity, system constraints and the effect of eligible customers purchasing less energy and capacity than authorized by the proposed annual limit. The proposal in the plan must include, without limitation: (a) A forecast of the load growth of the utility or utilities;(b) The number of eligible customers that are currently being served by or anticipated to be served by the utility or utilities;(c) Information concerning the infrastructure of the utility or utilities that is available to accommodate market-based new electric resources;(d) Proposals to ensure the stability of rates and the availability and reliability of electric service; and(e) For each year of the plan, impact fees applicable to each megawatt or each megawatt hour to account for costs reflected in the base tariff general rate and base tariff energy rate paid by end-use customers of the electric utility.7. The annual limits proposed pursuant to subsection 6 shall not apply to energy and capacity sales to an eligible customer if the eligible customer: (a) Was not an end-use customer of the electric utility at any time before June 12, 2019; and(b) Would have a peak load of 10 megawatts or more in the service territory of an electric utility within 2 years of initially taking electric service.8. As used in this section: (a) "Distributed generation system" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 701.380.(b) "Distributed resources" means distributed generation systems, energy efficiency, energy storage, electric vehicles and demand-response technologies.(c) "Eligible customer" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 704B.080.(d) "Energy" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 704B.090.(e) "Energy storage system" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 704.793.(f) "Historically underserved community" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 704.78343.(g) "Low-income household" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 704.78347.(h) "New electric resource" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 704B.110.(i) "Provider of new electric resources" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 704B.130.(j) "Renewable energy zones" means specific geographic zones where renewable energy resources are sufficient to develop generation capacity and where transmission constrains the delivery of electricity from those resources to customers.(k) "Sensitivity analysis" means a set of methods or procedures which results in a determination or estimation of the sensitivity of a result to a change in given data or a given assumption.Added to NRS by 1983, 886; A 1987, 961; 2007, 2986; 2009, 993, 1075; 2015, 2149, 2216; 2017, 938, 4286; 2019, 1199, 3516; 2021, 3793; 2023, 3037Amended by 2023, Ch. 495,§4, eff. 10/1/2023.Amended by 2021, Ch. 552,§39, eff. 6/10/2021.Amended by 2019, Ch. 556,§5, eff. 6/12/2019.Amended by 2019, Ch. 215,§20.1, eff. 5/29/2019.Amended by 2017, Ch. 590,§1, eff. 7/1/2017.Amended by 2017, Ch. 175,§7, eff. 5/26/2017, op. 7/1/2017.Amended by 2015, Ch. 395,§15.5, eff. 10/1/2015.Amended by 2015, Ch. 379,§2.7, eff. 6/5/2015.Added to NRS by 1983, 886; A 1987, 961; 2007, 2986; 2009, 993, 1075