This is an interesting problem. I have been wanting to dig deeper on some of the complaints around water and power. This one is unique though.

Doesn’t read much like a problem so much with data center growth as it does with Liberty mismanaging their business/assets. For almost 20 years liberty acted as nothing more than a transmission operator with very weak agreements on power generation. They should have been figuring out this problem long ago.

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SoftTalker a day ago | parent | next [-]

I would think that a lot of rural electrical cooperatives are "nothing more than a transmission operator" i.e. they own/manage/maintain the lines from their providers out to their customers, but don't have the capital or expertise to run generating plants.

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infecto a day ago | parent [-]

“nothing more than a transmission operator with very weak agreements on power generation” don’t take the quote out of context now.

I would bet most coops have fairly concrete contracts on generation. This one is unique because they were using usage from a grid they have no standing in. Weak agreement, folks should have been figuring it out 20 years ago.

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etchalon a day ago | parent [-]

Humans are bad at solving problems before they need to be solved.

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infecto a day ago | parent [-]

Not having a reliable power source sounds like a here and now problem.

	▲	etchalon a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It was working until it wasn't.
	▲	lesuorac a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

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jmyeet a day ago | parent | prev [-]

If the residents of Tahoe owned their electricity provider, we wouldn't be having this problem. This was the norm up utnil the late 20th century and then we started selling off all the utilities for "efficiency". These public-private "partnerships" (or just straight privatization with a regulated industry) allow investors to keep profits while pushing losses onto the public.

Private equity is getting into utilities because it's a captive market, the service is highly inelastic and the owners are generally allowed to push all capex onto customer bills without recourse.

So your "interesting problem" is simply not seeing this as what it is: profit extraction.

	▲	dlcarrier 16 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The Tahoe area has very strong NIMBYism regulations making it effectively impossible to build power plants in the area. It's not just a Liberty Utilities problem. Other nearby utilities, like TDPUD are in the same boat, only buying electricity and not generating it, and they are publicly owned.
	▲	infecto a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Don’t start throwing private equity as another scape goat. This is more of a regulatory gap than anything. They pay CPUC rates but NV is effectively their grid. This is definitely in the wheelhouse of Liberty and Lake Tahoe residents should have been figuring out the issue.