According to a report by Fortune, nearly 50,000 residents in the Lake Tahoe area are unsure where their power will come from after next ski season. “The Sierra Nevada tourist hub—home to ski resorts, lakeside casinos, and roughly 25 to 28 million annual visitors—is facing an energy crisis with a familiar culprit: the data centers powering the AI boom,” the outlet reports. “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,” More Perfect Union wrote. “NV Energy, the Nevada utility that has supplied most of Lake Tahoe’s electricity for decades, says that next year it will stop servicing homes in the area, and instead direct that electricity to the growing demand from Nevada data centers. Northern Nevada is one of the fastest-growing data-center corridors in the country,” it continued. NV Energy reportedly told Liberty Utilities, a small California company that services the region, that it will stop providing power after May 2027. 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 Fortune explained further: Google, Apple, and Microsoft have either built or are planning facilities around the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center east of Reno. The Desert Research Institute, using data from NV Energy’s 2024 Integrated Resource Plan, found that the 12 data center projects located overwhelmingly in Northern Nevada could drive 5,900 megawatts of new demand by 2033. At a regional business event last fall, NV Energy’s director of business development called the moment “unprecedented,” saying the company was eager to serve the new industrial load but that it would not “impact our existing customer base.” But Liberty’s 49,000 California customers may already be bearing the cost. Liberty Utilities generates about 25% of its power from solar facilities it owns in Nevada. The other 75% comes from NV Energy, and that source will no longer be supplied to the region by this time next year. “It’s like we don’t exist,” Danielle Hughes told Fortune. Hughes is a North Lake Tahoe resident, CEO of the nonprofit Tahoe Spark, and a supervisor within the California Energy Commission’s Efficiency Division. NV Energy said it wouldn’t be able to continue its arrangement with Liberty Utilities because of its “own resource needs.” “Our absolute goal is twofold: We want to achieve our renewable requirements in the state, and we also want it to be as affordable as possible,” said Eric Schwarzrock, president of Liberty, according to CalMatters. Liberty will most likely have to replace the energy from sources outside of California. CalMatters explained: Liberty is not physically connected to California’s energy market, which serves the state’s other electric utilities. Instead, its transmission lines come from Nevada. Liberty’s deadline for replacement power is tied to a major transmission project – Greenlink Nevada – that NV Energy is finishing; when that is complete, NV Energy will stop providing Liberty power, but Liberty will gain the rights to use that transmission infrastructure to reach other sources of replacement energy. In a statement, NV Energy said it is “aware of Liberty Utilities’ advice letter to California regulators and is currently reviewing it.” Data centers have driven requests to triple the company’s peak capacity, NV Energy’s director of business development said at a regional business event in September, as first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “These are unprecedented times,” he said during a panel discussion of the centers, adding, “we are excited to serve this load” but “we cannot impact our existing customer base.” Liberty’s letter to the California Public Utilities Commission about the change also sought approval to undertake a process for replacing the power and how it would rank proposals it receives, namely seeking the lowest-cost power. Once the commission approves its requests, commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper said, Liberty would choose its new energy supplier and seek approval from the regulator on the final contract.