LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Summer is almost here, and people in Las Vegas know what that means. It's time to crank up the AC!
We take hot to another level in this city compared to most of the country, and getting through summer takes planning.
MORE: NV Energy provides some tips and tricks on how to keep your power bill lower during these hot months.
Kim Bavington runs Art Classes For Kids and has a 4 week summer camp starting in June. Half of the program will be taught in her home studio. After 3 decades of teaching, Bavington knows to plan ahead for the costs of the season.
"The 2 things are: of course the power is more expensive in the summer but luckily I ration it out for the year. Also I’m having like 30 kids at my house. It’s a little bit of wear and tear," Bavington said.
For customers like her, NV Energy is upgrading its service facilities like the Silverhawk Power Plant to make sure they're ready for the dog days of summer heat.
They are working hard to make sure about 130 thousand customers are ready for summer.
With the high demand for electricity, NV Energy says the heat also affects the output of power as the turbines are running at top performance. Still, they are ready to meet the need for cool air. That's in part why upgrades and advance maintenance are critical every five years, like for a 130 thousand pound rotor from one of the combustion turbines was a target for upgrade.
NV Energy calls the maintenance outages, but it doesn't impact customers. They perform these outages during a time of year when they have the ability to take units off-line and pull energy from other sources.
With climate change impacting our desert life and as the days get hotter, NV Energy is setting its sights on more renewable energies.
NV Energy senior director of generations, Jason Hammons, said, "We don’t see a lot of new generations of these kinds of plants getting built. We do have quite a bit of solar planned to come online. Really it’s been our position to increase out renewable portfolio to cover additional load going forward."
For people like Bavington who must run their AC to run their business, knowing how to keep cost low is a must. However, she still finds a way to make her classes and camp magical for her kids, none the wiser of all the advance planning.
"The thing that is really rewarding to me is just that I can tell the kids are learning and they’re having fun learning. I like to call it “edutermainment” because their getting educated while being entertained, and they don’t even know," Bavington said.
