Just two weeks after an investigation found that NV Energy overcharged tens of thousands of customers over the span of more than two decades, likely resulting in the shutoff of electricity for some customers, state lawmakers have stalled a bill that would require the utility to provide quarterly updates of where utility shut offs are occurring in the state.

SB442, backed by Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas), would require water, gas and electric utilities — including NV Energy, the state’s largest electric utility — to disclose the number of customers it disconnects each month due to nonpayment, broken down by ZIP code and published quarterly.

Last year, nearly 32,000 NV Energy customers had their service interrupted; in 2023, more than 41,000 customers faced service interruptions. But information on disconnections is generally broad and limited, Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club’s Toiyabe Chapter, told lawmakers at an Assembly Growth and Infrastructure hearing earlier this month. What is needed, she said, is more detailed and timely data to understand the scope of the problem.

“SB442 … might help us start asking better questions about how to collaboratively solve what is evidently a huge problem impacting folks in our state,” Tanager told lawmakers.

But the need to disclose more detailed information is unnecessary, countered NV Energy, pointing out that the data is already available to people willing to do some digging.

“It’s not as broad as this bill is requesting. But … we do have some disconnection data currently available,” Anthony Ruiz, government relations manager at NV Energy, told lawmakers at the hearing. He countered that interested parties could manually overlay disconnection data with U.S. Census Bureau information to gain a broader understanding of who is being affected by disconnections. 

The bill is exempt from legislative deadlines and passed the Senate on a 17-4 vote on April 21. But the bill was referred to the Assembly’s budget committee and heard on May 21 because of an estimated $7,600 in funding needed to develop and adopt regulations necessary to carry out the bill. 

The measure has not been voted out of committee as of Thursday — giving it less than four days to advance before the end of the 120-day legislative session.

Disconnection thresholds

A federal act from 1978 encourages utilities to offer limited protections to customers, including not shutting off service during extreme temperatures that “would be especially dangerous to health.”

Nevada’s Consumer’s Bill of Rights specifies that seniors and disabled customers be notified before their service is disconnected, and varying protections exist for the state’s electricity customers based on region and maximum and minimum temperatures during times of extreme heat and cold, although those threshold levels vary by region and factors such as whether customers live in older mobile homes. 

For example, when it’s hot, Southern Nevada customers who are elderly or disabled cannot have their service shut off when temperatures climb higher than 103 degrees — if they live in an older mobile home, that threshold drops to 95 degrees. 

Last year, 526 people died from heat just in the Las Vegas area, and the city saw its hottest day on record when it reached 120 degrees. 

But having those guardrails in place doesn’t provide consumer advocacy and assistance groups with the information about specific shutoff trends or services needed by customers.

“This bill is fundamentally about transparency, but more importantly, it is about helping save lives,” said Hector Arreola, policy fellow for the Nevada Environmental Justice Coalition. 

A recent investigation by state energy regulatory staff showed NV Energy overbilled tens of thousands of customers over the last several decades, with the utility disconnecting service for nearly 3,200 of those customers because of nonpayment. 

While the investigation is still determining the total number of customers affected, “[i]t is reasonable to infer that overbilling contributed to, if not caused, nonpayment and related service disconnections in some instances,” according to the report.

“Staff understands consumer frustration with the issue and is working diligently to develop the necessary facts to determine how the misclassifications occurred, which customers are affected, and a resolution to the matter,” Dawn Rivard, consumer outreach director at the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, said in an email. “This process will take some time.”

AB452, sponsored by Assm. Tracy Brown-May (D-Las Vegas) and awaiting Gov. Joe Lombardo’s signature, would guarantee full refunds for overcharged customers. 

Energy burden

Nevada is not alone — roughly half of the nation’s states do not require disconnections disclosures, meaning regulators and lawmakers do not have a comprehensive understanding of the scale of disconnections taking place, according to a 2021 report by the Center for Biological Diversity. 

“This is a gaping hole of information that needs to be addressed in order for utility regulators and lawmakers to serve the public interest,” according to the report.

In 2022, Congress directed the U.S. Energy Information Administration to start collecting disconnection data.

While that data is still being gathered, more detailed information exists on Americans' “energy burden” — how much Americans spend on their utilities each month, and the socioeconomic inequalities surrounding that data. As of 2023, the average American household spent about 3 percent of its income on energy; however, low-income households spent more than 8 percent. Black and Hispanic households appear to experience a higher rate of energy burden and disconnections than other groups, according to a recent Congressional report.

Tanager tracked data for the central Reno ZIP code where she resides, which includes a large Hispanic population. In 2019, there were 28 disconnections, she told lawmakers; in 2022, there were 626 disconnections; last year, there were 911. Those numbers represent about 5 percent of the ZIP code’s population, she said. The national average disconnection rate is 1 percent.

Statewide, an estimated 32,000 Nevadans had their power disconnected in 2024, according to reporting by The Nevada Current. 

But NV Energy offers programs to assist those customers, Ruiz said. Through its low-income assistance program, NV Energy has given more than $2.8 million in assistance to customers in need, he told lawmakers. And the company has proposed a new low-income rate pending approval by state energy regulators that would waive the basic service charge for some customers in Southern Nevada, saving them about $240 annually.

“We share the goal of keeping our customers connected and support data-informed approaches to assist those who are at most risk of facing disconnection,” he said.