NV Energy will issue an additional $32.6 million in refunds to customers it has overcharged since 2017, the company announced Thursday in a filing with state energy regulators.

The announcement comes on the heels of a tumultuous year for the utility, including an investigation by state energy regulatory staff after it was discovered the utility had overcharged tens of thousands of customers by millions of dollars since 2001. The company’s former CEO, Doug Cannon, left the company shortly after the overcharges were revealed.

“We deeply regret these failures and recognize the impact the failures had on affected customers,” the utility stated in its Thursday filing, adding that it is “committed to taking the steps necessary to regaining public trust.”

The issue first arose in January 2024 when a customer notified the utility that their multifamily residence had been incorrectly billed as a single-family residence. NV Energy reviewed the account and confirmed the customer was correct; the utility also determined that other units within the same housing complex were being incorrectly billed.

By June 2024, the utility had determined that two additional, unrelated multifamily complexes had been incorrectly billed, although the utility did not voluntarily disclose the issue to state energy regulators. 

To date, the utility says that tens of thousands of customers, less than 10 percent of its multifamily residential customers, have been affected by the issue.

How the overcharges came about 

Between April 1, 2017, and April 1, 2024, the utility overcharged residential customers more than $17 million by misclassifying their residences — meaning they were charged a higher rate than they should have been. The utility also mischarged multifamily customers.

It is unclear the total number of customers that were overcharged and how much they were overbilled because the utility lacks billing data from 2001 to mid-2017.

Overcharges continued into 2025. 

The misclassification occurred in two ways, according to the utility.

When the company introduced a multifamily rate in 2002, not all households were included. Other misclassifications occurred when a residence or multifamily complex was added to the utility’s system.

Despite overcharging tens of thousands of customers for up to 23 years, the utility, relying on an incorrect rule to guide its refunds, only provided refunds to a portion of the overcharged customers.

The utility issued refunds in the form of six-month credits or check refunds totaling $1.83 million in December 2024; in May 2025, the company issued an additional $3.56 million in refunds.

The utility is now proposing to issue additional refunds, with interest, to affected customers retroactive to June 23, 2017. The company settled on the eight-year timeframe because it is its policy to retain customer billing records for seven years — roughly the amount of time before the misclassification error was first identified. The utility has paused its policy of scrubbing customer billing records after seven years while the issue is resolved.

Refunds will appear as bill credits for customers with active accounts. Former customers will receive checks mailed to their last known address.

The utility estimates it will return roughly $38 million in total.

A spokesperson for the utility said the company will bear the costs associated with the refunds and credits. A person familiar with the matter granted anonymity said the refunds will likely come from shareholders.

The utility is retaining an external firm to independently review and validate the company’s analysis. The results of the findings will then be submitted to state energy regulators.

NV Energy also says that to ensure similar errors do not occur in the future, it has “taken concrete steps to assign responsibility for the accuracy of rate classification and dwelling type designation going forward.” In addition, it has created internal procedures for verifying if residences are single family or multifamily and what sort of rate code they should be assigned, the utility said. 

A workshop on the matter is scheduled for Oct. 14.