(Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett highlights how his BerkshireHathaway Inc. utilities make massive investments in renewableenergy. Meanwhile, in Nevada, the company is fighting a plan thatwould encourage more residents to use green power.

Berkshire’s NV Energy, the state’s dominant utility, opposes theproposal to increase a cap on the amount of energy that can begenerated with solar panels by residents who sell power back to thegrid in a practice known as net metering.

While the billionaire’s famed holding company has reaped taxcredits from investing in wind farms and solar arrays, net meteringis often seen by utilities as a threat. Buffett wants his managersto protect competitive advantages, said Jeff Matthews, an investorand author of books about Berkshire.

“It always comes down to money,” he said. “It’s legal to lobbyand it’s legal to push your agenda, so he’s going to push hisagenda even if it looks kind of hypocritical.”

In an April presentation to investors, NV Energy laid out itsstrategy for addressing the growth of home solar. The utility saidit would “lobby to hold the subsidized net- metering cap at current3 percent of peak demand.”

The number of customers participating in the program in NVEnergy’s territory more than doubled in 2014. As more generatepower at their homes, the utility’s sales suffer.

Jennifer Schuricht, a spokeswoman for NV Energy, said thecompany “supports solar in all its forms.” She said the utility’scustomers are being served by 247 megawatts of solar, enough topower about 150,000 homes.

Still, raising the net-metering cap “increases costs to allcustomers and we oppose putting upward pressure on rates,”Schuricht said in an e-mailed statement.

Solar Industry

Sellers of rooftop-solar panels are pushing Nevada legislatorsto raise the cap, and one plan called for the ceiling to be liftedto 10 percent. Nevada State Senator Patricia Farley said she isproposing that Nevada’s utility regulator study the issue beforelawmakers act.

The Nevada Senate on Sunday passed an amendment to a bill thatwould permit state regulators to approve new utility- proposed feeson rooftop solar customers after the cap is reached.

“Across the country the utility industry is pressuringregulators and elected officials to limit solar energy’s growth,and the same thing is happening in Nevada,” said Gabe Elsner,executive director of the Energy & Policy Institute, aWashington, D.C.-based clean energy think tank. “NV Energy istrying to protect their monopoly by squashing competitors.”

Utilities say they support solar power. Their objections to netmetering stem from the idea that customers who don’t have rooftoppanels subsidize those who do.

Lobbyist’s Ties

The conflict in Nevada has also raised questions from the solarindustry about influence-peddling. One of NV Energy’s lobbyists,Pete Ernaut, was an adviser to Governor Brian Sandoval on twocampaigns. Sandoval has remained neutral on raising thenet-metering cap.

The Republican governor is “a confidant of the big lobbyist onthis,” said Bryan Miller, vice president of public policy and powermarkets at Sunrun, a San Francisco-based solar- leasing company.“Berkshire and the governor could not be closer.”

‘No Conflict’

Mari St. Martin, a spokeswoman for Sandoval, said in an e- mailthat “there is no conflict between the governor and lobbyists fromeither side.”

Ernaut “has been a lobbyist for NV Energy for more than 10years, before the governor was the governor,” said NV Energy’sSchuricht. Berkshire bought the utility in 2013. E-mailed requestsfor comment to Ernaut and to R&R Partners, a marketing firmwhere he’s president for government and public affairs, weren’timmediately answered.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada,said the state should raise its net-metering cap to allow for morerooftop solar, the Las Vegas Sun reported on Thursday.

Berkshire, based in Omaha, Nebraska, has become a major investorin renewable energy over the past decade. Its utilities are amongthe largest generators of wind and solar power in the U.S., andBuffett frequently points out those statistics in publicappearances and in his annual letters to shareholders.

Last June, he spoke at an industry conference in Las Vegas andsaid he was prepared to double his company’s commitment torenewable energy, which at that time totaled some $15 billion.

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