One California community’s search for a new source of electricity is highlighting the perils of the country’s fragmented grid and the public’s anxiety over the rise of data centers.
The California side of Lake Tahoe — an iconic lake that straddles the Nevada-California border — will lose the bulk of its electricity in May 2027, when Nevada-based NV Energy will stop sending power to the region’s utility. It’s a situation borne of rising electricity prices, Nevada’s boom in power-hungry data centers and the growing pains of adding renewable energy to the grid.
NV Energy, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, has long supplied power to Liberty Utilities, which serves homes and businesses near Lake Tahoe. Right now the energy purchase makes up about 75 percent of Liberty’s supply.
But the deal, initially made in 2009, was always temporary — and NV Energy plans to end it next year.
