Nevada Power
Contact: Sonya Headen
Phone: (702) 367-5222

For Immediate Release

Las Vegas, NV-- Nevada Power Company announced that approximately 10,000 customers on non-emergency circuits were affected by a staged curtailment for 45 minutes today at a period of record power demand.

Optional power contracts from regional generators were pulled back because of an extreme heat wave blanketing the entire western region. In addition approximately 350 megawatts of area generation was out of service today.

Long term contracts signed by the company for firm power went into effect today and those contracts prevented further power shortages.

"Efforts in Nevada to isolate our state from the California energy crisis paid off today," said Paul Heagen, Nevada Power's acting Vice President of Corporate Communication."While inconvenient for some customers today, this situation served as a fire drill to signify that conservation does matter. Large resorts and commercial and industrial customers were approached by the company to shed load and collectively shed 50 megawatts. These customers effectively ended our condition red and avoided additional outages."

Nevada Power announced today that a new record system peak of 4,395 megawatts was recorded 3:00 p.m. July 2, 2001.

Last year's system peak occurred Wednesday, August 1, 2000 at 5 p.m. with a recording of 4,325 megawatts.

Each year the Company's customer demand for electricity grows. Since 1994, the peak demand has risen from 2,851 megawatts to 4,395 megawatts in 2001. The increase in demand can be equated to customer growth. Nevada Power has grown from more than 403,000 customers in 1994 to more than 600,000 customers in June 2001.

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