Okay, this is a story that's been circling for a while on Reddit and other news aggregates and it's starting to get me curious enough to give it more than a cursory look. For full disclosure: I'm an electric engineer in employ by an energy utility in charge of system protection. Outside of regulatory compliance and my brief interactions with FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), the finances of the company with respect to our rate base are not in my wheelhouse. Furthermore, I'm not as verbose or succinct in my writing as some of the more prolific elements on this site. I'll try to keep what follows organized, but I'm treating this as much as a frustrated exercise for my own purposes as much as I'm using it for a conversation starter.

---

So allow me to draw attention to a local news story making the rounds: To quote, Sunny Nevada Just Killed the Solar Industry with 40% Tax Hike, Derailing the Off-Grid Movement. To summarize the major points of the article - though I highly encourage reading it in full for the context of some of my later points - a recent bill by the Nevada Senate effectively allowed the Utah PUC to create a regulatory framework for "conservation of energy" in buildings (this broadly ranges from construction standards to electrical systems, going all the way up to renewable energy). Now, legalese isn't my strong suit but this article about the bill mentions that this provision also allows the PUC the right to "increase fees for these customers' usage of the power grid." After reading over the bill a few times and I'm trying to find where such a thing is justified, but it may have to do with the broader regulating authority.

This bill was passed in March. In addition, the Nevada PUC voted in December during the NV Energy rate case (or at least they apparently did... and I'll get to this point in a moment) to adjust the net metering rate structure for NV Energy renewable customers. Avoiding my eventual point for a bit, I'll use NV Energy's own site to detail how the rate structure is changing.

The reaction to the combination of the creation of a new regulatory category, plus the adjustments to the rate structure for renewable customers, has drawn no small amount of ire from a rather sizable population of people. For now, I'm going to pick a completely random person to serve as a stand-in for what I will refer to from hereon in as "the public". Good? Good.

---

Alright, so everyone knows how I'm framing this then? The resources for what we'll need up ahead (both old and new) are as follows:

1. The article that prompted this post

2. An article providing further context

3. An article covering the aftermath of the rate case's formal filing, along with reactions from industry elements

4. Nevada Senate Bill S.B. 374, which authorized the creation of a new class of regulation class based on energy conservation

5. A link to NV Energy's website explaining the rate case changes

---

Stick these in your pocket from now. Because this is the part where I go off on a silky smooth tangent.

I'm not a fan of needless tedium. It introduces complication in places where it shouldn't, and unnecessarily obfuscates meaning to the benefit of no one. With that said, let me bring up a new set of resources. Going with numbers from hereon in because it's easier:

6. The general docket list for electrical dockets from the Nevada Public Utility Commission. This humongous list has a big-ass red target on its head that I'll get back to later.

7. A public release statement from the NPUC detailing the general gist and source details for the rate case in question.

Resource (7) right here is probably the first point we can talk about, but I'm not done with my point yet. A large part of the frustration about discussion about the power industry centers around the fact that these are all public proceedings. When I first arrived in the industry, my immediate reaction was as follows:

"Well... if people aren't happy with the rates, they have every right to either lobby their representatives or to rally behind groups to represent them during the rate case and hash it out there. They really don't have an excuse if they don't get involved in the process."

And, to some degree, I still agree with this sentiment. But I'm biased in that I have an implicit understanding of the system having worked in it for a small amount of time.

Time for another tangent: Let's play a game. It's called "Count the Steps." Here, I will detail my gut reaction to the original article that started all this and detail how many steps it took me to get to the next resources I will list.

START: Nevada Rate Case Ruffles Feathers, People With Vested Interests Have Opinions

Q: Okay. What exactly changed that has people so upset, and is it a reasonable thing to be upset about?

Step 1: Find the rate case filing. I check the article aaaand... oh, there's no link to it.

Step 2: Okay... let's try googling for another article and include inquiry into the rate case into it. This brought me to resources (2) and (3) but... the closest thing I got was an embedded link in (2) bringing me to the Nevada bill in question (4)... but that only gets me so far.

Step 3: Okay. Clearly direct googling won't work. What's the next logical place a customer with questions would look? Let's try NV Energy's website! Ah, perfect! Resource (5) gives us a breakdown of the changes from the rate case but... no link to the case itself... okay...

Step 4: Let's try another search for NV Energy, again talking about this specific rate case. Huh, I found another resource (that'll come up later) but not the one I needed.... hrm... okay, let's try...

Step 5: The Nevada PUC website. No better place than the source, right? Let's just head over to... Wait a minute... This isn't terribly straightforward. Where do I go to view rate cases? I guess... dockets might be my best bet. Let's try... Oh lord.

Remember that "big ass red target" I was talking about for Resource (6)? This is where I start to get mad. I've spent about 15 minutes at this point and I'm staring at an incomprehensible wall of text. My next best bet is to Ctrl+F for "NV Energy" and hope I find the right docket... maybe.

Step 6: So I try this and end up not knowing which docket to go to, even though I know from previous articles that the rate case order was filed in December of 2015. This is getting me nowhere.

Step 7: On a whim, I look up the Nevada PUC in general and find a link to their twitter page. Thank goodness someone at the PUC has some tech acumen. I scroll through recent tweets and find a link to Resource (7), the public statement on the upcoming results of the rate case. Inside I'm given two more pieces of information in the form of resources.

---

8. Docket 15-07041, The NV Energy Rate Case Review

9. Docket 15-07042, Same as Above

---

Step 8: So after maybe half an hour of searching, I know exactly where I need to be. I scroll down and make my way in to our last resource:

10. The Nevada PUC Order related to Dockets 15-07041 and 15-07042, filed on December 23rd, 2015

One Hundred and Thirteen Pages straight from the word of God. Thirty minutes in to a process where I already knew where to start and I finally make it to the last brick wall for most people.

Thus ends my tangent. Eight logical leaps and anywhere from thirty to fourty minutes for me to get from an article talking about an issue to its actual source. Insert sarcastic comment on the state of internet journalism.

Remember when I said that I used to blame customers for not staying involved in the process? Yeah, shit like this is why that sentiment stopped dead in its tracks about a month into my work. Granted, I'm a bit of a weird fuck who actually enjoys going in and reading the FERC orders for a bunch of upcoming regulations because 1) it's my job to learn this stuff and 2) I like actually reading through the testimony and seeing what justifications people come up with when we as utilities make our cases to the federal regulating agencies. But you can't look me dead in the eyes and tell me with anything other than a muffled laugh or a smirk that any of the self-assured voices speaking up in the comment threads of subjects like this did anywhere near half the legwork I just did to figuring out what exactly the fuck is going on in Nevada right now.

If you're still with me at this point, I'm sorry to say that I haven't had a chance to sit down and read this order yet. Other shit (namely taxes) have kept me busy this weekend and furthermore I'm not particularly sure that anyone really wants someone as inartful at prose as I am to try and thumb through something with this much heft to it and do anything other than injustice to the text.

The greater hope I had in writing this post is that for everyone out there with a fleeting interest in what goes on at a regulating level, that my wall of text might give a vague impression about where all of this information is stored, how little of it is being actively and transparently relayed to the public, and the frustrations from an industry insider without enough experience under his belt to actively weigh in on these issues who wants nothing more than for everyone to just talk and get along and understand each others wants, needs and limitations.

I don't know anyone at NV Energy. I don't know anyone in the Nevada PUC and I have literally negative stake in this conversation given my current position in my company and our geographic placement relative to this. But if anyone out there reading this wants me to, I'd absolutely be willing to try and SparkNotes the PUC order, take a look at what's happened between December and now, and try and paint a larger picture of the industry's reaction to solar from my own limited experiences.

Let me know, guys. I know i don't write here nearly as much as I'd like to, but if this is something people are interested in I'd love to try and open the conversation up as much as I can.

EDIT: No promises on when, but I'll print out the order and take a look at it over the next few days/weeks. As I said before, the finances of DG are not my discipline so everything I'm going to try and do is just an attempt to open up the process for questions and discussion, and should be treated with just as much skepticism as any other random stranger on the internet who Has An Opinion.