NV Energy proposes to issue more than $63 million in refunds, which includes interest, to customers who may have been impacted by an error where some customers living in multifamily residences were misclassified as single-family residences. The filing proposes refunds to active customers dating back to 2002.
The proposal was announced in a filing to the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada.
“The path forward we proposed to resolve this issue is the right thing to do and is a great resolution for our customers. We are grateful for the hard work of the Regulatory Operations Staff (Staff) of the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) for their help in developing a resolution that makes current customers whole again,” said NV Energy President and CEO Brandon Barkhuff. “My top priority when I assumed the role as CEO was to resolve this and put forth processes and procedures to ensure billing accuracy and rebuild transparency and trust with our customers.”
The total refund amount of more than $63 million goes well beyond shorter refund periods as laid out by provisions, rules and laws, which in some cases, only called for six months’ worth of refunds.
NV Energy says the misclassification did not result in a financial windfall for NV Energy - the error impacted individual customers who ended up paying more while other customers paid less, but the rate-setting and revenue design processes in place with the PUCN ensured that NV Energy was not unjustly enriched and the overall revenue requirements for NV Energy remained balanced.
The utility says PUCN Staff spent a significant amount of time over the last several months, working collaboratively with NV Energy teams, to ensure that the company has corrected, and will continue to correct misclassification errors. Tuesday’s announcement is a result of this close work and collaboration.
In addition, NV Energy has proactively put forth new processes and procedures, and hired CBIZ, a third-party, independent professional services firm, to review and validate the company’s work.
Additional details related to the refunds will be available on nvenergy.com in the coming days. Impacted customers can also reach out to NV Energy directly with any questions or concerns related to their account.
NOVEMBER 7, 2025:
NV Energy has filed an estimate with the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada for possible reimbursement to customers that it overcharged between 2002 and 2025.
Through a number of calculations, the power company now puts the total overcharges to customers at roughly $65.5 million between those years.
The PUCN continues reviewing NV Energy’s methodologies to determine the full scope of the overbilling.
To read NV Energy's full filing with the PUCN, click on the document below.
A previous version of this story said that NV Energy had formally announced reimbursements. This has been updated to reflect that they simply provided an estimate.
SEPT. 18
NV Energy says it has proposed expanding refunds following the discovery of rate misclassifications affecting 42,000+ multifamily residential premises.
In a public filing with the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, NV Energy says some properties were misclassified as single-family dwellings and billed under single-family rate schedules.
NV Energy says it issued $5.4 million in refunds after finding the error.
The proposal calls for refunding an additional $32.6 million, including interest, to affected customers—current and former—retroactive to June 23, 2017.
“We regret the impact this error has caused our customers,” said Brandon Barkhuff, President and CEO of NV Energy. “It’s important that we learn from this mistake and seek continuous improvement. We are committed to ensuring our systems and processes reflect accuracy and accountability moving forward and are implementing better procedures and controls to prevent this from happening again.”
In addition, NV Energy says it is committed to hiring a third party to independently review and assess the completeness and accuracy of the Company’s conclusions.
MAY 15, 2025:
The Nevada Public Utilities Commission says NV Energy overcharged thousands of people over more than two decades.
The PUC made the announcement in a filing dated May 13.
The PUC says “through an investigation, Staff discovered that NV Energy has been overcharging tens of thousands of misclassified residential customers since as early as 2001. Between April 1, 2017, and April 1, 2024, NV Energy’s residential rate misclassification resulted in approximately 60,000 customers being overcharged in excess of $17 million.”
It goes to say that “NV Energy also recently disclosed that it overcharged approximately 20,000 previously unidentified ‘multi-family accounts’ for an undisclosed amount.”
The PUC says that despite the long-term overcharges, the utility “only provided refunds to a portion of affected customers” with NV Energy capping “refunds to six months, amounting to less than $2 million in refunds.”
The PUC says NV Energy has not identified a known cause for the misclassifications but say they started in 2001 when the utility adopted a multi-family rate schedule.
The PUC says “NV Energy claims it billing data between January 1, 2001 and June 22, 2017, and therefore cannot quantify the exact financial harm to customers for those 16 years.”
The Commission says based on its findings it can “issue administrative fines against NV Energy, require the restoration of funding to accounts necessary to achieve compliance with proper rate schedules….”
(you can read the Commission's findings below this article)
NV Energy released this statement to 2 News Nevada:
"NV Energy is aware of the request from the regulatory operations staff of the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada to review the recent refunds NV Energy provided to customers. NV Energy will respond appropriately through the regulatory process. NV Energy discovered a number of customers who were charged the wrong rate for their property type, informed the Public Utilities Commission staff of the issue and has notified those customers and started issuing refunds to customers that were overcharged. NV Energy has not sought repayment from those customers that were undercharged."
