A Clark County district court judge ruled against the attorney general's office in its efforts to block NV Energy's controversial change to how it charges Southern Nevada customers, saying during a Tuesday hearing that she believed the change could benefit the majority of Nevadans and did not violate state regulations. 

The proposed change is a daily demand charge, set to take effect in January, that will charge Southern Nevada residential customers for the maximum amount of energy they use during a 15-minute period throughout the day. The charge will be offset by reductions in other costs, and state energy regulators say they expect overall bills to go down for the 90 percent of Nevadans who don't have solar. 

But the proposal has made some wary. The attorney general's Bureau of Consumer Protection brought its lawsuit against the Public Utilities of Commission of Nevada (PUCN) in Clark County District Court in December — a month after a similar lawsuit was filed in Carson City District Court by the advocacy organizations Vote Solar and Earthjustice. Both lawsuits argued that in approving the daily demand charge, the PUCN had unfairly disadvantaged solar customers and overstepped its authority to set rates.

The daily demand charge has become a key issue on the campaign trail for Attorney General Aaron Ford (D), who's running for governor and has pledged that if elected he will "put a stop to" the charge. 

After the hearing, Ford issued a comment through his office stating that the court "got it wrong" and that he would be appealing to the state Supreme Court. 

"In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, it is outrageous for big utility companies to drop yet another expense on Nevadans' shoulders in the form of the unlawful demand charge," Ford wrote. 

A hearing on the lawsuit that was filed in Carson City District Court is set for Wednesday morning.

During Tuesday's hearing, held in the 8th District Court in downtown Las Vegas, lawyers with the attorney general's office argued that stage energy regulators had unfairly shifted costs onto solar customers and reached beyond their statutory duties — into an area under the purview of the Legislature — by attempting to balance rates between solar and non-solar customers.

Although the state utilities commission is in charge of setting rates, in 2017 Nevada lawmakers passed AB405, dubbed the "Renewable Energy Bill of Rights," which required PUCN to treat solar and non-solar customers the same. 

"The commission is trying to do something that it cannot do," said BCP attorney Paige Magaster. "In trying to create a solution, a regulatory solution, for a legislative issue, they have run afoul of other laws."

The attorney general's office also argued the daily demand charge violated a Nevada law against "time of use" billing structures, when customers are charged higher rates for electricity used during peak hours, such as weekday evenings. 

The PUCN attorneys argued the demand charge is not a time of use charge because it doesn't penalize customers for using power during a particular, set time. Instead, it measures an individual customer's highest energy strain on the electrical grid during each 24-hour period.

The PUCN and NV Energy also said the daily demand charge would benefit most Nevadans who don't have solar. 

Judge Mary Kay Holthus appeared skeptical throughout the hearing of the arguments made by the attorney general's office. 

Garrett Weir, a PUCN attorney, told Holthus that the daily demand charge would help Nevadans who "are multifamily, multigenerational, who live in homes where they're not energy efficient, where they can't control the overall use of electricity. Now they have that ability to at least reduce that demand-based portion of the cost they have to pay." 

The attorney general's office argued the opposite, saying the charge was unfair because many Nevadans couldn't control the maximum amount of demand they were placing on the grid. 

Holthus said she found that idea unrealistic: "Most people can spread it out," she said. "There will always be some kind of electricity that you can do sooner or later, not all at one time."

Holthus also repeatedly cited evidence submitted in court documents showing that due to Nevada's policies benefitting solar users, 90 percent of the state's residents effectively help pay for the energy costs of the 10 percent of residents who have rooftop solar. 

The PUCN hadn't approved the charge "in a punitive way," Holthus said. "They're trying to be fair to everybody."