A Nevada lawmaker has introduced a bill that he says would increase transparency around how much renewable energy the state is producing and how much of it is sold to customers in other states.

Sen. Joseph Hardy (R) is the sponsor of Senate Bill 197, which would require a report from the Public Utilities Commission in odd-numbered years.

The report would include:

• • • how much electricity is generated in the state from renewable resources, including solar, geothermal, hydroelectric and wind, with the amount broken down by type;
    • the amount of electricity from renewable resources generated in Nevada and sold to retail customers outside the state; and
    • the amount of electricity generated from renewable resources outside Nevada, and how much of that is sold to retail customers in the state.

The Senate on Growth and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing on the bill Wednesday. Hardy said the information was important in light of Question 6, a ballot measure that voters approved in November. The measure requires the state’s electric utilities to acquire half of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Because the question proposed an amendment to the state constitution, it needed voter approval in two elections. Voters previously passed it in 2018. (See Nevada Clean Energy Amendment Winning.)

“Do we have enough [renewable energy] for ourselves; do we have enough to share; do we deserve some way to get recompense for what we share as citizens of the state; or is that going to go just to the investors?” Hardy said.

SB197 would also require an assessment of how much land in the state is being used for renewable electricity generation, how much land is available for that purpose and how much would be needed to meet the requirements of Question 6.

Jennifer Taylor, deputy director of intergovernmental relations in the Governor’s Office of Energy, said during the hearing that some of the questions posed by SB197 would be easier to answer than others.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration produces state electricity profiles that include a state’s net generation and net interstate exports, Taylor said. EIA also has information on renewable energy used for electricity generation inside Nevada.

Taylor said that the question of how much renewable energy generated in the state is sold out of state “is complicated by the fluidity of energy markets, including the Energy Imbalance Market and the Western Area Power Administration.”

“Excess supply generated in-state may be sold into those markets, which then utilize those resources to balance the entire system both in- and out-of-state,” she said.

Taylor said the governor’s Office of Energy wasn’t aware of any public sources of information that would answer SB197’s questions about land.

Sen. Keith Pickard (R) said the information the bill is seeking is important.

“This is all information we need,” Pickard said. “It’s impossible for us to make an estimate of whether or not we can even meet these requirements if we don’t have an understanding of what’s available and what we may need.”