Tag Archives: CVOW

Dominion wins one for the shareholders.

By Steve Haner

The State Corporation Commission has rejected arguments that the Virginia Clean Economy Act would allow Virginia’s dominant electric utility to get more than 35% of its new wind, solar and battery power from third party suppliers. Dominion Energy Virginia is guaranteed by law (actually, required is the better word) to own 65% of those assets directly.

The ruling was issued today in the Commission’s final order on Dominion’s most recent application for additional solar and battery assets, most of which were approved.  The question has lingered through several recent cases since the General Assembly passed VCEA in 2020, with various stakeholders arguing that the third-party assets are usually cheaper for consumers and impose less risk from failure.

The lower cost of those alternative approaches was highlighted in this case and discussed earlier on Bacon’s Rebellion. Dominion had rejected several cheaper third-party choices in compiling its plan. That earlier story also touched on the dispute over whether the 35% referenced in the statute was a ceiling or a floor.  The SCC looked at the plain wording of the law in effect and declared it really is a target that cannot be ignored or exceeded. To wit:

This particular law is written as follows: “… and 35 percent of such generating capacity procured shall be from [third party-owned resources], with the remainder, in the aggregate, being from construction or acquisition by (Dominion.) As written, the above says “35%” – neither something more nor something less – “shall” be from third party-owned resources.

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Dominion’s proposed offshore wind project. Phase two, similar in size, would build out to the east.

By Steve Haner

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has proposed a stronger requirement in state law that any second wave of offshore wind serving Virginia be subjected to a competitive procurement process, rather than simply allowing Dominion Energy Virginia to build it with all the costs and risks imposed on its customers.

The planned 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project now under federal environmental review remains the only such project in the United States which is being developed directly by a monopoly utility. Other projects involve third-party developers raising the capital and taking on much of the financial risk for the multi-billion-dollar investments, then selling the power to utilities.

This is just one of several consumer-oriented amendments Youngkin proposed on a series of energy bills, to be voted on at the General Assembly’s reconvened session April 12. Should the Assembly reject his amendments, his option then is to either sign or veto the bill as it passed in February.

The financial and operational risk imposed on ratepayers by direct utility ownership of the wind farm was the focus of debate before the State Corporation Commission (SCC) finally authorized the project, now estimated to cost $10 billion. A method to shift some of the risk to the company’s shareholders if power output fell below projections was initially accepted but then abandoned by the regulators. Continue reading →

by Steve Haner

Advocates made their case Monday for a proposed settlement that offers Virginia consumers some protection from construction cost overruns on Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed offshore wind project. Not everybody said it was superior to an earlier proposal that protected consumers from future operational failures, but all saw it as unlikely to kill the project.

The earlier approach, placing the risk of operational failure over 30 years on the utility, was going to kill the project, the utility claimed. The utility stood by that threat in the hearing in front of the Virginia State Corporation Commission. But the company is willing to risk its shareholders’ money on its ability to complete the project on time and on budget, its attorney told the Commission.

There was no indication during the hearing when a decision would come. The two judges could leave their original order unchanged or issue a new one based on the proposed agreement between Dominion, Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), two environmental groups and Walmart, one of Dominion’s largest commercial customers.

Other parties, including representatives for major industry and the SCC staff, didn’t sign the stipulation. Nor did they oppose it, and Commissioner Judith Jagdmann polled them one by one.

Two conclusions are evident from the hearing. First, all the parties to the new approach took Dominion’s threat to kill the project at face value and that is what backed them down, including Miyares. He had Deputy Attorney General Steven Popps appear at the hearing, not just consumer section chief Meade Browder, to emphasize his (Miyares’) desire to save the project in a closing statement. Continue reading →

Dominion’s proposed wind project off Virginia Beach.. Scale is correct and a second tranche is planned.

by Steve Haner

First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

The big risk with Dominion Energy Virginia’s planned offshore wind extravaganza has always been that either the wind out in the Atlantic blows too little or it blows too much. Too little and the ratepayers are paying an inordinate amount for intermittent electricity; too much (a major hurricane say) and the turbines could be damaged or destroyed.

Because the monopoly utility will own the project, not a third party energy developer, all that risk lands on its ratepayers. The State Corporation Commission sought to protect Virginia ratepayers from the risk. That was the point of its imposition of a performance standard on the project tied to its overall energy output.

That is the risk Dominion’s leadership refused to accept, threatening to kill the $9.8 billion project entirely. It was not an idle threat.

Now Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) has a new proposal which protects Dominion and its shareholders from that risk after all, putting it back squarely on the utility’s 2.5 million customers. Instead, the person charged by law as the protector of Virginia consumers is focused on the risk of construction cost overruns. Continue reading →