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Reno, Nevada -- Sierra Pacific Power Company issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) today seeking to purchase up to 25 megawatts of electric capacity and/or energy from special electric generating facilities known as Qualifying Facilities (QFs).  Sierra Pacific Power is a subsidiary of Sierra Pacific Resources (NYSE:SRP).  The RFP requests delivery of the power as early as 2007 and as late as 2011.

With its enactment in 1978, the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) created a market for the first power plants to generate electricity outside of the traditional utility structure.  Qualifying Facilities are designated by PURPA in two categories: small power producers, which are wholesale generators of electricity using renewable sources of energy to create the electricity; and cogenerators which produce electricity as a byproduct for their own manufacturing or processing purposes and have excess energy to sell to the utility.

Sierra Pacific has been purchasing electricity from QFs since the first units came on line in the early 1980s and currently purchases 110 megawatts of power from QFs in northern Nevada. 

All responses to the RFP must be delivered to the company by July 25, 2006.  Further information and detailed instructions for responding to the RFP can be found at:http://www.sierrapacific.com/company/RFPs/.

Headquartered in Reno, Nevada, Sierra Pacific Power Company is the principal utility for most of northern Nevada and the Lake Tahoe area of California. The company serves approximately 300,000 electric customers in northern Nevada and 45,000 electric customers in California. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sierra Pacific Resources, which also is the holding company for Nevada Power Company, the electric utility for southern Nevada. Sierra Pacific Power also distributes natural gas to approximately 135,000 customers in the Reno-Sparks area of northern Nevada. Other subsidiaries of Sierra Pacific Resources include the Tuscarora Gas Pipeline Company, which owns 50 percent interest in an interstate natural gas transmission partnership.