Formed in 1921, The Nevada Irrigation District is headquartered in Grass Valley, California, a picturesque and historic California Gold Rush town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, 60 miles northeast of Sacramento. NID is an independent special district operated by and for the people who own land within its 287,000-acre boundaries. NID provides service in an expansive geographic area that makes the district one of the largest in the State of California.
NID is a leader among Northern California water agencies in the production of clean, renewable, hydroelectric energy. The District has seven hydroelectric power plants with a generation capacity of approximately 82 megawatts and produces an average 375 million kilowatt hours of energy each year. The district began producing power in 1966 with the completion of the $65 million Yuba-Bear Power Project. The project included the Chicago Park and Dutch Flat powerhouses. The Rollins powerhouse was added in 1980. To make use of existing water releases, small power plants were added during the 1980s at Bowman, Scotts Flat and Combie reservoirs.
