The lakeside resort communities on the California side of Lake Tahoe will need a new energy source by May 2027 as energy-guzzling data centers keep springing up on the Nevada side of the lake, according to reports.
Nevada public utility, NV Energy, which supplies the small California company Liberty Utilities (LU) with 75% of the power consumed by LU’s 49,000 customers on the California side of the lake, told LU that it would no longer supply power to the customers by May 2027, Fortune reported. The energy needs of data centers in Nevada are expected to comprise 75% of major-project load growth, according to 2024 expert testimony from the left-leaning Sierra Club.
LU then informed the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) March 6 of NV Energy’s new “change of stance” as NV Energy’s transmission lines were “currently severely constrained,” SFGate reported. The tone of the letter reportedly contrasts with that of LU President Eric Schwarzrock at an April meeting of the South Lake Tahoe City Council. “This does not mean the power is shutting off,” Schwarzrock said. “Energy companies, utilities, large customers change energy supply frequently.”
South Lake Tahoe Mayor Cody Bass warned the CPUC that the impending expiration of energy supply to the Lake Tahoe Californians had been gravely concerning to the locals and businesses and that the locals had begun watching the matter closely, according to SFGate.
Nearly 50,000 people in the Lake Tahoe area have been told that their utility will stop providing power to them, because it’s redirecting that power to data centers.
NV Energy, the Nevada utility that has supplied most of Lake Tahoe’s electricity for decades, says that next year…
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 13, 2026
“It’s like we don’t exist,” Danielle Hughes, a North Lake Tahoe resident and energy sector professional, reacted to Fortune. (RELATED: Blackstone-Owned Data Center Drained 30 Million Gallons Of Water From Big City Suburb)
The Lake Tahoe residents are in a peculiar situation among Californians as LU’s grid sits within NV Energy’s balancing authority instead of the California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO) grid that caters to almost all other consumers in California, according to Fortune, citing a LU filing with state regulators. The outlet also noted that LU’s grid wholly relies on Nevada’s transmission lines.
A new transmission line across the Sierra Nevada could help directly connect LU to the CAISO grid. “But to build a transmission line from El Dorado Hills area toward South Lake, you’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars and quite the impact to the land to bring that line here,” Schwarzrock said at the April meeting. “Now, someday that may make sense, but those sort of costs are significant, and so we focused on lines that exist today.”
A new, 525-kV, $4.2 billion transmission line being constructed within Nevada should be operational by May 2027, Fortune reported. Schwarzrock promised LU would be “first in the waiting line” to connect to it—but as that date coincides with that of the impending discontinuation of energy supply to the Californian counties on Lake Tahoe, the residents and businesses there could be left with no buffer time, according to Fortune.
Nevada is one of the fastest-growing data center regions in the U.S. and the world given its surplus land area, cost-competitive energy, and an attractive tax and regulatory environment, a report published Wednesday by the Desert Research Institute shows.
The amount of energy that the data centers in Las Vegas and Reno will soon need to operate could be equivalent to that required to power 3.1 million homes, according to Upwind in 2024.
Virginia and Texas have the highest numbers of operational and planned data centers, the Pew Research Center has found.