Tag: Dominion Energy

Lawmakers push for stronger oversight of Dominion’s rates

Washington Post: Lawmakers push for stronger oversight of Dominion’s rates. A group of Virginia lawmakers is set to push for stricter regulatory oversight of the state’s dominant electric utility, saying Dominion Energy’s customers have overpaid billions of dollars because of the company’s outsized political sway.

But this year a group of lawmakers and advocacy groups plan to mount the strongest effort in years to beef up the power of the state’s regulatory agency, the State Corporation Commission, to lower rates and order customer refunds.

Report: Dominion Energy’s costly coal-fired Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center

Appalachian Voices discusses the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis released a report shedding light on Dominion Energy’s costly coal-fired Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center in Wise Co, Va., and its likely early closure. The report, entitled Virginia Coal Plant’s Future Isn’t Bright: Preparation for Transition Should Commence Now, finds that the plant operates significantly below its full capacity at a hefty cost to ratepayers, and that its closure will have significant economic impacts on the surrounding communities in Southwest Virginia. The power plant currently provides approximately $8.5 million in tax revenue to Wise County, and employs approximately 153 people.

PSC flexes new muscle by rejecting Dominion growth plan

Statehouse Reports discusses PSC flexes new muscle by rejecting Dominion growth plan.

The S.C. Public Service Commission (PSC) on Wednesday sent Dominion Energy back to the drawing board in what is being interpreted as a new spirit of oversight..

Under the 2019-passed Energy Freedom Act,  the state’s electric utilities were required to make a three-year Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for managing future growth and to explore adopting sources of renewable energy and solar expansion.

The PSC, whose seven members have been appointed in the last two years, unanimously rejected the plan. The motion, made by PSC Chairman Justin Williams of Columbia, requires the utility to make significant modifications to its draft plan, remodel the cost of its proposed plans, and expand the availability of solar and renewable energy, among other things.

For at least one environmentalist, the order was a bold move for a new PSC.

U.S. has 7 ocean turbines. Companies see hundreds soon

E&E News discusses how the US has 7 ocean turbines. Companies see hundreds soon.

When construction was completed last month on two wind turbines in the rolling Atlantic waters off the Virginia coastline, it marked the passage of a key milestone.

It was the first commercial project built in federal waters and also the boldest plunge yet into this European-dominated business by a U.S. energy company.

“It’s part of our commitment to be the cleanest energy company in the United States,” announced Dominion Energy Inc., a Richmond, Va., company that serves over 5 million customers.

The Department of the Interior, which leases offshore wind tracts, has approved 16 projects altogether and an additional seven proposals under review, the agency said. The operating leases are located exclusively on the East Coast, and the list of companies involved in those ventures is likely unfamiliar to most Americans.

It’s Been an Awful Week for the Fossil-Fuel Industry

Bill McKibben, in The New Yorker, discusses why it’s been an awful week for the fossil-fuel industry.

t’s been a truly awful few days for the fossil-fuel industry, which is another way of saying that it’s been an unexpectedly good few days for planet Earth: a trio of sweeping and unlikely victories have demonstrated the depth of great organizing and the increasing weakness of the industry’s hold on our political system.

First, on Sunday, Duke Energy and Dominion Energy—enormous Southeast utilities—announced that they were scrapping plans for the Atlantic Coast natural-gas pipeline, despite having invested $3.4 billion in the project. They’d actually won a big Supreme Court ruling just weeks earlier, giving them the right to lay the pipeline beneath the Appalachian Trail—but that, executives from the two companies said in a joint statement, wasn’t going to be enough. “This announcement reflects the increasing legal uncertainty that overhangs large-scale energy and industrial infrastructure development in the United States. Until these issues are resolved, the ability to satisfy the country’s energy needs will be significantly challenged.” Translation: they were evidently rattled by a court order earlier this spring in the granddaddy of all pipeline battles; a Montana federal court ruled in April that the Trump Administration couldn’t simply waive environmental laws to help the backers of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline may have had Supreme Court permission to traverse the Appalachian Trail, but the companies must have realized that they were going to face litigation at every stream crossing along the route.

Yay! The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is DEAD!!!

Multiple articles/announcements:

It’s about Fricking time!

With Supreme Court case over, courts again weigh whether Atlantic Coast Pipeline is needed

The Virginia Mercury discusses whether the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is needed.

Last week, the Supreme Court handed a victory to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline when it ruled that the U.S. Forest Service had the authority to allow the project to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail.

But the end of that battle has seen the revival of another, more fundamental conflict: whether the pipeline really is needed.

The project’s main developers — Dominion Energy and Duke Energy — have since its introduction adamantly insisted the pipeline is the best way to supply what they say is the growing demand for natural gas in the region.

2 articles on the Supreme Court decision on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

E&E News discusses Pipeline wins Appalachian Trail battle but may lose war. The Supreme Court yesterday removed one hurdle for developers of the Atlantic Coast pipeline, but the natural gas project remains in legal limbo as a host of other obstacles stand in the way of construction. In a 7-2 decision, the justices reversed a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling stating that the Forest Service could not authorize a permit for the pipeline to cross hundreds of feet beneath the scenic Appalachian Trail. The ruling was a win for pipeline developers Dominion Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp., as well as the Trump administration, but it did not resolve problems with other permits the 4th Circuit has scrapped.

The Virginia Mercury discusses As Supreme Court hands win to Atlantic Coast Pipeline, other hurdles remain for project. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a 600-mile natural gas pipeline being built by utility heavyweights Dominion Energy and Duke Energy, can cross beneath the Appalachian Trail in Virginia’s George Washington National Forest. But the 7-2 decision, penned by Justice Clarence Thomas with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissenting, lifts one barrier to the continuation of the $8 billion project while leaving in place eight others that the pipeline must surmount before moving forward.

Studies: New Studies Make Clear Why Virginia Can – and Should – Switch As Quickly as Possible to Energy Efficiency, Solar, Offshore Wind

Blue Virginia discusses why Virginia Can – and Should – Switch As Quickly as Possible to Energy Efficiency, Solar, Offshore Wind. With the climate crisis raging, it’s indisputable that we need to go all-in on clean energy (wind, solar, energy efficienty) and ditch fossil fuels ASAP on environmental grounds alone. But increasingly, in recent years, the economic rationale for a transition to a clean energy economy has become overwhelming – even *without* accounting for the massive, negative environmental and health “externalities” of fossil fuels. The latest evidence?

  • First, see Efficiency significantly cheaper than natural gas, DOE study concludes, which finds: “Natural gas energy efficiency programs run by utilities saved energy at a cost of about $0.40/therm from 2012 to 2017 — less than half of the national average retail price of gas during that period, according to new research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.” So basically, it makes Z-E-R-O sense for Dominion to build new natural gas infrastructure – pipelines, power plants, whatever. And they simply shouldn’t be allowed to do so. At the bare minimum, it’s time for some serious “decoupling” of Dominion’s revenues from simply building and producing more…er, “stuff.”
  • Second, check out today’s article in Utility Dive, As utility solar costs drop 82%, US renewable leaders target majority generation share by 2030, which finds: “The cost for utility-scale solar PV power has declined 82% since 2010 and the costs for onshore and offshore wind have declined 39% and 29%, respectively, according to a report released Tuesday by the International Renewable Energy Agency.”
  • On a related note, as the article reports, clean energy industry leaders are laying out a vision for 2030, in which “solar energy would account for 20% of power generation…wind would provide another 20%, hydroelectric would account for another 9%, and the remaining 2% would come from other renewable energy resources,” and “[e]nergy storage — battery, hydro, mechanical and thermal — would provide the flexibility and reliability needed for renewables to become major players in the power sector.”
  • Finally, see below for highlights from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) study, which finds that “new renewable power generation projects now increasingly undercut existing coal-fired plants“; that “[n]ext year, up to 1 200 gigawatts (GW) of existing coal capacity could cost more to operate than the cost of new utility-scale solar PV, the report shows”; and that: “Replacing the costliest 500 GW of coal with solar PV and onshore wind next year would cut power system costs by up to USD 23 billion every year and reduce annual emissions by around 1.8 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide (CO2), equivalent to 5% of total global CO2 emissions in 2019. It would also yield an investment stimulus of USD 940 billion, which is equal to around 1% of global GDP.” Wow!!!

Walmart blasts Virginia regulator’s report on pricing, biomass in Dominion’s proposed 100% renewable energy tariff

Utility Dive discusses Walmart’s reaction to a Virginia regulator’s report on pricing, biomass in Dominion’s proposed 100% renewable energy tariff.

  • Walmart, one of Dominion Energy’s largest customers in Virginia, warned regulators that their consideration of the utility’s plan to offer a 100% renewable energy option to C&I and residential customers includes unreasonable pricing, according to a Monday filing.
  • An April report from Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) hearing examiner Mary Beth Adams recommended approving Dominion’s proposed tariff. The utility largely approves of Adams’s recommendations and wants to see the tariff approved quickly, to prevent customers from leaving its service.
  • Walmart, alongside renewable energy advocates, said the premium would be paid for an inferior product, as it would include “energy that most customers do not consider to be renewable,” such as co-fired coal and biomass units. The company has long-opposed the tariff but noted a litany of oversights in the net-positive report from Adams.