This Would Be You, Virginia
By Steve Haner
Mel Leonor reports in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch that Dominion Energy Virginia and the Green Energy Oligarchs have used the Virginia General Assembly to empty your pockets with a false promise.
According to Dominion’s own information, the highly touted Virginia Clean Energy Act (1) will not result in a total end to fossil fuel generation feeding your homes and businesses and (2) will increase bills by amounts similar to or in excess of the warnings in February from the State Corporation Commission. She writes:
Either way, the company said, customers in Virginia should expect to see their bills rise by as much as 3% a year until 2030, in large part due to infrastructure investments to build solar, offshore wind and battery capacity.
For the average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month, that could mean an increase of $45.92 to their monthly bills, from the current $116.18 per month to $168.58 per month.
The SCC’s estimate of the new legislation’s rate impact was that it would cost residential customers about $28 a month (1,000 kWh) within five years, so Dominion’s projection over ten years is right in line. The SCCs claims have been validated and the false promises of lower costs from advocates exposed.
In a prior life (30 days ago), I might dig into the case file and dissect the company’s news release and give Bacon’s Rebellion a full report. In the two years following passage of the 2018 abomination I’ve called the Ratepayer Bill Transformation Act, I made a heavy effort to educate the handful of readers about how they were being ripped off and lied to. The passage a few weeks ago of the even worse Clean Energy Boondoggle Act convinced me the effort was futile. Too many people want to be ripped off and lied to.
Most players in this game are profit-driven, and those who are not are suckers, hapless pawns. But the public’s gullibility has been even better demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We jump at the chance to follow a bunch of flawed models over an economic cliff, it seems. How did the song go? “We did it before, and we can do it again.”
I don’t expect to now follow the twists and turns of the integrated resource plan case, or the coming application to start the installation of 5,100 megawatts of only semi-productive offshore wind turbines from Europe. Why keep writing stories I could write today? COVID-19 has demonstrated as well that high blood pressure is a true killer, and this stuff raises mine.
So, enjoy your somewhat greener and way more expensive power. Don’t waste time trying to understand it or complaining to politicians under the thumb of Dominion or the Green Oligarchs. In the intervening weeks, I’ve continued the installation of LED bulbs and now have a price on a gas tankless water heater. I’m sure the next step will be the tax me through my remaining electric bill to buy one for some low-income household. It will be deemed a matter of justice.
