Nevada Utility and Google Strike Innovative Green Accord

NV Energy and Google have pioneered new utility regulatory policy
to help the tech company’s move to power its data center with
renewable and green energy.


In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg interviews
Doug Cannon, President and CEO of NV Energy. 


Google executives say the agreement could be a template for
similar pacts with utilities around the country. Higher revenues
from new fee structures will be used to fund new geothermal
generation resources in Nevada. 


“We really quickly recognized is we couldn’t just rely on that
tariff book anymore and we had, if we were going to stay relevant
in the business and we were going to be a value-add energy
provider for our customers we had to change our way of business.”


Utilities that don’t adapt to the green energy push of the likes
of Google, Amazon and Microsoft may be headed to challenging
times. 


“We’re going to see some utilities bypassed.”


“What this product, what we’re focused on is real time green
generation being injected into the NV Energy grid at the same
time as Google was utilizing energy… there’s absolutely a real
time match on that energy.”


Doug Cannon leads NV Energy’s daily operations and oversees the
company’s commitment to deliver low-cost energy, expand its
renewable energy portfolio and maintain industry-leading
reliability for its customers. He has been with NV Energy since
2013.


NV Energy delivers electricity to nearly 1.3 million customers
and nearly 50 million tourists annually throughout its nearly
46,000-mile service territory in the state of Nevada. 


Cannon earned a juris doctor from the University of Colorado
School of Law and a master’s degree in environmental studies from
the University of Colorado. He holds a bachelor’s degree in
environmental geoscience from Weber State University.