Category Archives: Utilities

Utilities Will Gamble on Nukes With Your $$$

Posted on April 11, 2024 by | 22 comments

Artist rendering of VOYGR™ SMR plants powered by NuScale Power Module™

By Steve Haner

Standing firm against raising taxes is a fine thing, but it would help if Virginia’s leaders also stopped using people’s electricity bills to fund rent-seeking energy speculations.

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has tweaked, but not vetoed, pending bills that allow both of Virginia’s investor-owned utilities to charge ratepayers for power plants that may not be built. The dream projects involve small modular nuclear technology, proven in military applications but so far speculative for commercial generation. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Fighting Over the Check at the Green Power Cafe

Posted on April 10, 2024 by | 24 comments

By Steve Haner

New power plants are pretty useless unless they are connected by new power lines. The debate over who pays for those tall towers and miles of cable can be just as divisive as the fight over who pays for a proposed nuclear plant or offshore wind turbines.

Bottom line, of course, the customers ultimately pay. But which customers? Should it be those most reliant on that individual transmission line, everybody within the utility, or should it be all the customers within all the utilities inside a regional transmission organization? Continue reading →

24 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Will Consumers Come First in VCEA Review?

Posted on April 5, 2024 by | 42 comments

FERC Commissioner Mark Christie of Virginia

By Steve Haner

“If we always keep as our focus what is best for consumers, in getting them reliable power for the least cost, then I think that’s the main guidepost we ought to follow.”

That was Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie’s opening quote on a PBS broadcast on energy issues due to air April 9, but the 26- minute program can already be found on the network’s website and Christie distributed it via X today. Continue reading →

42 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Utilities

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Dominion Program to Bury Lines Halfway to Goal

Posted on April 1, 2024 by | 66 comments

By Steve Haner

Just over a decade ago, Dominion Energy Virginia announced plans to spend about $1.75 billion of its ratepayers’ dollars on a program to bury about 4,000 miles of its residential service lines underground. As of the end of last year, the tally was just over 2,000 miles buried at a total cost of $994 million.

The original goal was reported by Jim Bacon, who was initially favorable to the idea. The update comes from an annual report dated March 29 and posted by the State Corporation Commission. This reporter, who admittedly already lived in neighborhoods with underground lines installed at the cost of the developer, was skeptical of paying to bury somebody else’s lines, and this new report doesn’t ease the irritation. Continue reading →

66 Comments

Posted in Regulation, Utilities

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Wind Project Sued Over Claimed Threat to Whales

Posted on March 18, 2024 by | 69 comments

NOAA Right Whale status graphic, updated this month to report 123 recent deaths and injuries.

By Steve Haner

A coalition of public interest groups has now filed its expected lawsuit seeking to halt construction of Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore wind facility off Virginia Beach. Its key complaint is the federal permits were issued without a full and fair evaluation of the potential impact of the turbines on the shrinking North Atlantic Right Whale population.

The Heartland Institute, based in Illinois, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, with offices in Washington, D.C. and the National Legal and Policy Center of Falls Church, along with two individuals, are the listed plaintiffs. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and federal office holders are among the named defendants, along with Dominion.

The 61-page complaint to a District of Columbia federal court seeks relief under the Endangered Species Act. It claims the law requires the federal government to study the combined impact of all the planned East Coast wind projects, from New England waters down to North Carolina’s outer banks. Instead, the federal permitting authorities to date have looked at individual projects without regard to cumulative effects when issuing wildlife impact opinions and permits.

From the article on the CFACT website: Continue reading →

69 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Energy, Environment, Utilities

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See, Hear, Speak No Evil on Four Whale Deaths

Posted on March 9, 2024 by | 50 comments

The Daily Press credits Jennette’s Pier for these two photos it published.

Another whale has turned up dead on a beach, the fourth found on Virginia or North Carolina beaches within one week, several within sight of Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore turbine project.  This one was identified as a juvenile sperm whale and is the furthest from the project site.

In all the news coverage so far, no intrepid reporter has told their viewers or readers what (if anything) is going on out in the ocean on the construction site. Dominion’s federal license allowing “incidental take” of marine mammals began its five-year effective period in early February. It would be fair to ask the utility if contractors are actively surveying the sea floor with sonar at this time or doing any preliminary pile driving. Continue reading →

50 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Is Dominion-Stonepeak Deal a Partnership Flip?

Posted on March 6, 2024 by | 12 comments

By Steve Haner

Dominion Energy Virginia insists that its decision to sell a half-interest in the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project “won’t impact ratepayers.” The problem is, perhaps it should. Perhaps Dominion is creating additional value for its shareholders that instead should benefit ratepayers. Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Consumer protection, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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EPA Told CVOW Wake Has Air Quality Impacts

Posted on March 4, 2024 by | 21 comments

One of two dead whales washed onto Virginia Beach so far this month, just onshore from the CVOW project. WAVY reports on it.

By David Wojick

In formal comments, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to assess the adverse impact of the giant Virginia offshore wind project on air and water quality. The issue is far-reaching because all big offshore wind facilities could have these adverse effects. Continue reading →

21 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Governor May Get Two Different Nuclear Bills

Posted on February 26, 2024 by | 38 comments

Small modular reactor illustrated

By Steve Haner

A Virginia Senate committee voted Monday to approve a House of Delegates bill designed to finance a small modular nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia, contradicting its own earlier vote for a much broader bill that had statewide application.

Two different bills on the same topic might now pass the Virginia Senate.  If the House does the same thing with the Senate bill, now alive in front of its Labor and Commerce Committee, Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) could have two very different bills to choose from. Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Floyd Judge Ponders Order to Return RGGI Tax

Posted on February 19, 2024 by | 26 comments

The states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative tax compact before Virginia withdrew.

By Steve Haner

A circuit court judge in Floyd County may soon order Virginia to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and to reimpose the related carbon tax on Virginia’s electricity consumers.

Judge Kenneth “Mike” Fleenor Jr. ruled earlier this month that a suit seeking reinstatement of RGGI could continue and held a hearing on February 5 on the question of “immediate relief.”  The plaintiff, a group of energy efficiency and insulation contractors using the RGGI tax dollars for their programs, has claimed it will suffer immediate and irreparable harm unless Virginia returns to collecting a carbon tax on coal and natural gas used by utilities. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Energy, General Assembly, Taxes, Utilities

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If Assembly Wants SMR Bill, Then Fix It

Posted on February 13, 2024 by | 79 comments

By Steve Haner

This is progress. Only twenty members of the Virginia Senate voted Tuesday to ignore a key tenet of utility ratemaking and put utility stockholders and profits ahead of consumer protection. Usually when the utilities persuade the General Assembly to do that to Virginia consumers, they get a bigger vote margin than 20-16.*

Senate Bill 454 allows Virginia’s two monopoly electricity providers to spend undetermined millions of dollars on planning and developing small modular nuclear reactor projects and get it all paid by consumers, with a profit margin. But there is no guarantee any such plants will ever be built, and no other power plants built in Virginia have gotten this kind of up-front financial guarantee before the State Corporation Commission ruled them in the public interest. Continue reading →

79 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Consumer protection, Energy, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Will Dominion Fool Us Again with SMR Cost Bill?

Posted on February 9, 2024 by | 63 comments

Artist rendering of a NuScale small modular reactor plant, proposed but now not being built in Idaho.

By Steve Haner

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  A utility-backed bill to stick electricity ratepayers with the high-risk costs of developing small (modular) nuclear reactors, approved by a Senate committee Friday, is a “fool me twice” example.  Shame on the General Assembly if it falls for it. Continue reading →

63 Comments

Posted in Consumer protection, Energy, General Assembly, Utilities

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Rare SCC Deadlock Sinks Dominion’s Energy Plan

Posted on February 4, 2024 by | 52 comments

By Steve Haner

The year long debate over Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed integrated resource plan, which threw climate catastrophe activists into a frenzy because it added a new natural gas plant, is ending with no decision.  Two State Corporation Commission judges split on whether to approve it, basically a win for the anti-fossil fuel forces.

In December, a hearing officer assigned to study the case had ruled that Dominion’s plan should be rejected because it included the expansion of gas generation, when the anti-natural gas forces in the General Assembly had passed laws against that 2020 and 2021.  Those laws did include provisions for maintaining or adding fossil fuel generation on the basis of a threat to reliability, but only under limited circumstances. Continue reading →

52 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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NJ Greenmailed Into Massive Wind Energy Costs

Posted on February 1, 2024 by | 9 comments

By Steve Haner

New Jersey just agreed to two ocean wind projects with astronomical guaranteed power prices. The price demanded and received by independent competitive suppliers shows there is at least some upside to the utility-owned, captive ratepayer-financed model behind Dominion Energy Virginia’s massive offshore wind facility.

In late 2023 the news was full of reports that independent wind developers were pulling out of various projects along the East Coast because the projects were no longer economically viable. Those who thought the future of the industry was in jeopardy were wrong. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Great Judges Can’t Fix Bad Energy Laws

Posted on January 29, 2024 by | 23 comments

Former SCC Commissioner Mark Christie communicated his enthusiasm for Kelsey Bagot’s election with this photo on X.

By Steve Haner

The General Assembly has now filled the two open seats at the State Corporation Commission (SCC), ending two years of gridlock.  Unfortunately, the same legislators, on both sides of the aisle, are still working overtime to dictate and micromanage the state’s energy policy, reducing the discretion and authority of the independent, non-partisan regulators. 

Samuel T. Towell, elected to the SCC last week, fits the expected mold for such positions.  His legal career has been inside and outside the Virginia government, with his term as the civil litigation deputy under Attorney General Mark Herring (D) as the highlight of his resume.  In that role he supervised the consumer counsel functions under Herring, participating in SCC matters.  Since then, he has been working for Smithfield Foods.  

Breaking the mold is Kelsey Bagot, only a decade out of Harvard Law and with no real Virginia-specific experience.  She spent much of her career so far at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), working part of that time for former SCC Chairman Mark Christie.  Christie’s expressed enthusiasm for her qualifications makes her about as close to a bipartisan choice as was possible.   

They join current Commissioner Jehmal Hudson, also a veteran of FERC, who has been serving by himself for more than a year.  Towell and Hudson, less than 20 years out of law school, and the younger Bagot form a trio that could be in office together for decades.  That had to be on the minds of the legislators (all Democrats) who made these choices.   

Fully qualified and engaged judges are still bound to follow the law.  Virginia’s headlong rush into an economically foolish war on fossil fuels is being directed by the bills flowing from the General Assembly, not by rogue judges.  If the last two sessions controlled by Democrats, 2020 and 2021, were a two-alarm EV battery fire, the 2024 session could be the equivalent of the Maui apocalypse.    Continue reading →

23 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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