Category Archives: Utilities

What Dominion is promoting as how to “save” you money while paying off its old fuel bills, with ten years of Tuesdays to pay. With interest.

by Steve Haner

The final version of a regulatory revision for Dominion Energy Virginia restores State Corporation Commission authority over the utility’s profit margin and rates, a major goal for Governor Glenn Youngkin (R). It was also the highest priority in a detailed energy policy put forward by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

Of the aggressive goals set out in Dominion’s initial legislation, few were accomplished in the end. The General Assembly did agree to directly legislate a profit margin for the utility for two years, and it is an increase.  Come 2025 the SCC will be free to set the next profit rate without any reference to the peer group of other utilities now required by law. Continue reading →

From this morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch:

 A reduction in Dominion Energy bills is on the way after a compromise on a new approach to regulate the company made it through the General Assembly on the last day of the session….

The compromise on electric bills — in legislation that passed nearly unanimously — would bring an immediate $6 to $7 cut in a benchmark 1,000 kilowatt-hour monthly bill, which now stands at $137.

Now there is a firm prediction, a promise even, that we can track.  The reductions will be immediate, right?  So, look for them on your next monthly bill?  Or should we be honest that the bill, if signed as is, doesn’t go into effect until July 1.  Will your bill immediately go down on July 2?  September 1?  The newspaper predicts it will be lower even though as the year progresses, Dominion begins to charge even more for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, the upgrades at its four nuclear reactors, and puts the tax to pay for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative back onto your monthly bills. Oh, and the new legislation increases Dominion’s authorized profit margin, which customers will start to pay in the near future.

Pick a date in the future, maybe just before Election Day 2023, and we’ll see then what 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity costs a Dominion customer.  The RTD is promising $131.

A deeper analysis of the final conference report substitute on Dominion’s proposed regulatory will likely appear later today.  But that ridiculous claim that your bills will actually go down “immediately” needs to be highlighted and filed away for future reference.  And once again the newspaper has to be dismissed as a serious, independent news outlet when it writes propaganda ledes to please one of its largest advertisers.

— Steve Haner

Rube Goldberg is the best illustration when our General Assembly does energy policy bills.

by Steve Haner

With adjournment less than a week away, the 2023 General Assembly is a mixed bag for electricity consumers, with the Assembly seeming to release control to regulators in some areas but continuing to assert its tight control in others.

Dominion Energy Virginia’s legislation to sweeten its authorized profit margin, which will not lower customer bills despite claims in its advertising blitz, passed the Senate but remains in trouble in the Virginia House of Delegates. A key House committee voted late last week to stick with a version of the bill that leaves the return on equity formula unchanged. Continue reading →

From Energy Burden Coalition flyer mailed to legislators.

By Steve Haner

One sentence, if it is the right sentence, can upset the machinations of the powerful. Two bills pending in the 2023 Virginia General Assembly contain such a sentence, and it could upset the plans of Dominion Energy Virginia.

Here is the sentence at the heart of both bills:

…if the (State Corporation) Commission determines in its sole discretion that the utility’s existing base rates will, on a going-forward basis, produce unreasonable revenues in excess of the utility’s authorized rate of return, then, notwithstanding any provisions of subsection A 8 of § 56-585.1, the Commission may order any reductions to such base rates that it deems appropriate to ensure the resulting base rates (i) are just and reasonable and (ii) provide the utility an opportunity to recover its costs and earn a fair rate of return.

Continue reading →