Virginia regulators rebuke Dominion’s long-term plan, but OK it anyway

Virginia regulators sent mixed signals on the state’s clean energy transition this week — accepting utility Dominion Energy’s plan for new fossil-fueled plants on one hand but ordering the company’s future blueprints to better account for the state’s carbon-free electricity law on the other.

Dominion’s forecast represents its strategy for meeting electricity demand over 15 years and doesn’t lock the company into building specific power plants — a nuance the State Corporation Commission was careful to note in its July 15 ruling. But the regulatory panel could still factor in the plan as it mulls Dominion’s bid to build a massive gas-burning complex outside of Richmond.

“This order rightfully notices a lot of problems with Dominion’s planning process and is rightfully requiring them to fix it,” said Nate Benforado, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. ​“The real question is: What’s going to happen in the meantime? We certainly shouldn’t be relying on a flawed plan when billions of customer dollars are at stake.”

Benforado and other advocates had urged the State Corporation Commission to reject Dominion’s plan outright, an action it’s taken before. Instead, the panel OK’d the resource plan with only faint praise, calling it merely ​“legally sufficient” and directing Dominion to change its approach for its next forecast, due October 2026.

The accepted plan stops six years shy of 2045, the year by which Dominion is supposed to generate 100% carbon-free electricity, according to the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act. The road map does not address how the utility expects to meet the decarbonization requirement.

In light of what Benforado and other advocates called this ​“fundamental flaw,” the commission ordered future schemes to span 20 years — not 15 — and include at least one scenario where all fossil-fueled plants are shuttered by the law’s deadline.

“Year after year, Dominion files plans that ignore clean energy requirements, lock in expensive fossil-fuel infrastructure, and drive up electric bills,” Dyanna Jaye, deputy director of strategy and governance at nonprofit Clean Virginia, said in a statement. ​“By recognizing the harm this process can cause to Virginia families and businesses, the Commission has taken a step in the right direction by calling for significant reforms moving forward.”

Regulators also directed Dominion’s future plans to include additional battery storage, discuss grid-enhancing technologies, and aim to shave more power demand through energy-efficiency measures. The commission called the utility’s proposal to achieve 2.73% energy savings by 2028 ​“the low end of feasible,” and said a 5% target would be more reasonable.

“Dominion’s long-term plan should serve Virginia customers — not stand in the way of progress,” Shawn Kelly, Virginia-based regulatory director at industry group Advanced Energy United, said in a statement. ​“The [proposal] needs to reflect the law, plan for a reliable clean energy future, and make use of proven tools like energy efficiency and storage to meet customer needs affordably.”

Though they didn’t call out the proposed 944-megawatt gas complex in Chesterfield County by name, regulators stressed that they will still debate Dominion’s plans for it and roughly 5 more gigawatts of new gas-burning plants before green-lighting any actual construction.

“Acceptance does not express approval … of the magnitude or specifics of Dominion’s future spending plans, the costs of which will significantly impact millions of residential and business customers in the monthly bills they must pay for power,” the order says.

The commission ​“quite clearly” signaled it wouldn’t be rubber-stamping new plant permits, said Benforado. But how the panel plans to treat the modeling underlying the Chesterfield proposal, which mirrors that of the long-term plan, is murkier. ​“There’s just a lot of question marks there,” he said.

Other disappointments for proponents of clean energy: The panel accepted Dominion’s self-imposed limits on new solar farms, which advocates say are far too low. Plus, neither the utility nor its regulators made mention of environmental justice, though the public health toll of burning fossil fuels is possible to quantify.

“Our estimates put those health impacts in the range of $7 [billion] to $13 billion,” Benforado said. ​“We urged the commission to direct the company to really analyze health impacts, and it just wasn’t addressed in the order.”

Asked for a reaction to the ruling, Dominion spokesperson Aaron Ruby emphasized that the company is building the country’s largest offshore wind project, and that it faces the biggest growth in power demand since World War II.

“We appreciate the Commission’s thorough review, and we’ll of course follow the additional requirements in future [plans],” Ruby said. ​“Most of our new power comes from carbon-free sources like offshore wind and solar. We also need natural gas in the mix because renewables are not always available.”