(Photo: Ronda Churchill/Nevada Current)
Researchers estimate that about one million households in the United States are disconnected from electricity due to nonpayment each year, but the exact number of households in Nevada facing power shut offs amid heat waves is largely unknown.
There should be a bill for that, a panel of state lawmakers agreed during a recent committee meeting.
Nevada does not require utilities to disclose the number of customers they disconnect, leaving little transparency of the magnitude of the problem. NV Energy, a regulated utility monopoly with more than a million captive customers, has shown little interest in publicly sharing the number of disconnected customers.
Advocates argue that public data on energy disconnections throughout the state would allow researchers, community-based organizations, and policymakers to identify patterns of disconnection and support communities that are more vulnerable to service disconnection.
“Both the reporting and the associated demographics would help us give a better picture of what’s going on in terms of people’s ability to pay their energy bills each month,” said Olivia Tanager, the director of the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter in Northern Nevada.