Eat My (Coal) Dust!

Possum Point coal ash ponds

In a possible early-warning sign of what may be in store for Virginia electricity consumers, North Carolina regulators have decided that Duke Energy could charge their Tarheel rate payers the first $778 million chunk of an estimated $5 billion in coal-ash cleanup costs. The sum does not include $100 million in two mismanagement penalties for practices that “resulted in cost increases greater than those necessary to adequately maintain and operate its facilities,” reports the Associated Press.

Dominion Energy Virginia will likely incur coal-ash disposals costs in the $1 billion to $4 billion range, although no firm figure will be available until the state issues solid-waste permits for a disposal plan. Dominion says that de-watering the coal ash, consolidating the material in a single pit at each power plant, and covering it with a synthetic liner will protect the public at a fraction of the cost of the alternative, favored by activist groups, of hauling the ash to landfills with greater environmental protections.

North Carolina’s Attorney General said he would go to court to stop Duke from passing along its disposal costs to rate payers. “This case will ultimately be decided by the North Carolina Supreme Court,” he said.

The coal-ash disputes in North Carolina could prefigure in part what happens in Virginia. State regulators must approve disposal plans for millions of tons of coal ash that accumulated legally over the decades at Dominion’s Bremo, Possum Point, Chesterfield, and Chesapeake power plants. Presumably, Dominion will file with the State Corporation Commission (SCC) to pass along as much of that cost as possible to ratepayers.

What makes Dominion’s situation different from Duke’s is that Dominion’s base electric rates were frozen between 2015 and 2018, and Dominion has already written off a portion of disposal costs incurred during that period. Also, under terms of recently enacted grid-modernization legislation, Dominion now will plow surplus earnings into renewable-energy, energy-efficiency and grid-upgrade projects. The public has not yet been informed how multi-billion charges for coal ash-disposal costs would be treated from an accounting viewpoint, what impact they would have on Dominion profits, or how the costs would ripple through to grid modernization.

I cannot foresee any circumstances in which the SCC would dun Dominion for mismanagement penalties. The company has complied with state and federal laws and regulations as well as judicial rulings throughout the process.