NV Energy to End Power to California Tahoe in 2027

Nearly 49,000 residents and businesses on the California side of Lake Tahoe face an uncertain electricity supply after May 2027, when Nevada-based NV Energy plans to end wholesale power deliveries that currently account for 75 percent of the supply used by local utility Liberty Utilities.

The change affects homes, ski resorts, casinos, and other operations in the popular Sierra Nevada resort region, which straddles California and Nevada. NV Energy notified Liberty Utilities of the planned termination, citing constraints on its transmission lines amid surging demand from data centers in northern Nevada. Those facilities, linked to companies including Google, Apple, and Microsoft near the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center east of Reno, consumed 22 percent of Nevada's electricity in 2024, a figure projected to reach 35 percent by 2030 according to the Desert Research Institute.

"It's like we don't exist," said Danielle Hughes, a North Lake Tahoe resident, CEO of nonprofit Tahoe Spark, and supervisor in the California Energy Commission's Efficiency Division.

Liberty Utilities, which serves the affected California customers, relies entirely on Nevada transmission lines and operates within...