For decades, Nevada's Bureau of Consumer Protection (BCP) has been the proverbial stick in the mud on plans from electric or gas utilities that evoke even a whiff of cost shifting — the practice of putting extra costs onto certain customers.

In hundreds of filings before state utility regulators, the small bureau housed in the attorney general's office has stood up for consumers, largely those who are lower income, by opposing cost shifting in cases involving everything from electric vehicle charging stations to who pays for wildfire mitigation efforts. 

The agency's track record stands in stark contrast to its stance on NV Energy's controversial new demand charge, and now the agency finds itself arguing against a billing charge intended to better balance power bills for many Nevadans. 

Last year, state energy regulators approved the demand charge, which will bill Southern Nevada customers for their highest 15 minutes of power usage each day, capturing the "demand" they put on the utility's infrastructure. Multiple states have voluntary daily demand charge programs, but Nevada would be the first to make it mandatory. 

The demand charge — staunchly opposed by environmental groups and other utility critics — is an effort to right-size what NV Energy says is an inequitable cost shift between solar and nonsolar customers across Southern Nevada. 

Nearly 90 percent of the company's customers do not have solar, yet they pay to cover the costs of customers who do, Jeffrey Bohrman, director of regulatory pricing and economic analysis for NV Energy, told state energy regulators in a 2025 filing.

"Retaining the status quo forces these customers to pay rates that are higher than they otherwise should be, which results in an imbalance," he said. "The company's proposals [including the demand charge] attempt to minimize this imbalance." 

The BCP, which is statutorially charged with protecting Nevadans from unfair business practices and defending customers during energy proceedings, opted in this case to side with the 10 percent of solar customers. 

The agency filed suit against state energy regulators over the demand charge, with Attorney General Aaron Ford pledging to take the issue to the state Supreme Court after a district court judge ruled against the agency in May. It's become a political cudgel for Ford, the Democratic nominee for governor who has pledged to "put a stop to" the charge.

Yet above the political fray is a more complicated question as to how utilities should best recover fixed costs (one-time expenses the company pays for up front and is then reimbursed for from customers) in an increasingly complicated energy landscape. 

"What the cost shift argument relies on are old methods ... that overlook a lot of the contributions [from solar]," said Brad Heusinkveld, regulatory director at Vote Solar, a solar advocacy association that filed a lawsuit against the demand charge alongside the BCP. "No rate design is going to get everything perfect for every type of customer."

But even acknowledging those imperfections, how utilities' fixed costs should be paid for has become a national issue, said Severin Borenstein, faculty director at the University of California, Berkeley's Energy Institute at Haas.

"This has become a foundational issue with utilities," he said. "It is not an NV Energy-specific problem."

A back-and-forth battle over solar 

Residential solar was an emerging industry embraced by just a few homeowners when Nevada created its first net metering program in 1997. Net metering programs provide a bill credit to residential solar panel owners for the excess energy they generate and put back onto the grid.   

But fueled by abundant sunshine and financial incentives, Nevada's residential solar buildout swelled. By 2014, the state was among the nation's leaders for installed solar capacity, with nearly 150,000 residential solar households.

As residential solar grew, lawmakers and energy regulators wrestled, as they continue to do, with how to balance costs between solar and nonsolar customers.

The BCP initially took the stance that low-income customers were not the bulk of the state's solar customers and that by having nonsolar customers cover solar customers' costs "those low-income customers could be providing a subsidy to the higher-income customers." Instead, the bureau argued, solar and nonsolar customers should be billed differently to avoid shifting costs between the two groups. 

In 2015, in response to legislation that, in part, ordered updates to the state's net metering policies, energy regulators gutted the financial incentives residential solar customers had been receiving, sparking an overwhelming backlash that included actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo testifying before state energy regulators. The 2015 debacle set the stage for 2017 legislation, dubbed the "Solar Bill of Rights," that adjusted net metering credits to again make them favorable for solar customers. 

That legislation, AB405, also required solar and nonsolar customers be placed in the same billing class — essentially forcing the cost shift. 

Ford was serving as a state lawmaker at the time, and he voted in favor of the bill. He was elected as Nevada's attorney general in 2019.

Since AB405 was signed into law, options have been limited to address cost shifts between solar and nonsolar customers. 

A consistent stance

Even outside the debate over solar, the BCP has consistently maintained its anti-cost shifting stance — at least, until the demand charge.

In 2022, when NV Energy was rolling out its ultimately failed plan to build statewide electric vehicle charging infrastructure, the BCP pushed back against what it said was a subsidy benefiting wealthy customers. A bureau witness stated that ratepayers "should not be forced to further subsidize the upper- middle- and high-income customers who are the chief purchasers of these cars."

The following year, the BCP argued that Southern Nevadans should not pay tens of millions of dollars for wildfire mitigation work in Northern Nevada as NV Energy developed its natural disaster protection plan. Shifting those costs, it argued, would violate bedrock utility law.

But last year, the BCP filed a lawsuit against state energy regulators over the demand charge, and intervened in Vote Solar's lawsuit.

Judges ultimately sided with the state's energy regulators, but Ford remains adamant. The case is now pending at the Nevada Supreme Court. 

"We think the judge is wrong," he said at an August IndyTalks event. 

John Sadler, communications director for the attorney general's office, added in an email that the demand charge violates state statute and that state energy regulators lack the authority to increase energy bills for existing solar customers through the demand charge. 

"We are confident the Nevada Supreme Court [will] reverse the decision of the lower court," he wrote. 

Irrespective of what customers benefit from or get penalized by the demand charge, "it's absolutely a smart move" for Ford to latch onto the issue during campaign season, said Rebecca Gill, associate political science professor at UNLV.

"I think this will work even on nonsolar customers," she said. "If you think about what the charge actually is, it just sounds unfair. … Even if on net it would benefit more people.

"It seems unfair that this electric utility could look at the time you are spending the most money and then charge you extra for it," she said. "It's easy to make it appear 'that's another way they are trying to get us.'"

'There is no easy answer' 

Energy experts say the solution lies with state lawmakers, who would need to revisit AB405, the 2017 law. Without revising that legislation, there are few options to address the built-in cost shift. 

Earlier this year, outgoing Assm. Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas) proposed legislation that would prohibit NV Energy from implementing the demand charge, but fellow members of an interim legislative body failed to make a supporting motion.

Acknowledging the binding legal framework and lack of political will, economists have differing views on whether the demand charge, slated to go into effect in January, is the most effective way for NV Energy to recoup its fixed costs.

"It's very tricky," said Mark Tremblay, assistant professor of economics at UNLV.

"When you have huge peaks in electricity, you're tapping into the highest-cost ways to serve that electricity," he said. "The demand charge is pricing that into the equation, which is a good thing."

Borenstein, however, argues a demand charge isn't the best solution because it isn't reflective of actual strain on the grid.

"When you use more, it doesn't put more strain on the grid unless you do it when everyone else does," he said.

But if a demand charge isn't the best solution, what is?

"The answer is there isn't a good solution," Borenstein said. "There is no easy answer."