Tag Archives: Dominion

by Steve Haner

The State Corporation Commission Wednesday granted motions by two competitive service providers and ordered Dominion Energy Virginia to hand over various customers.  The two companies, Direct Energy Business LLC and Calpine Energy Solutions LLC, offer a 100 percent renewable energy option in the monopoly utility’s territory.

“The Commission has found that: (a) absent the instant order, Direct Energy and Calpine will suffer irreparable harm; (b) Direct Energy and Calpine have no adequate remedy at law; and (c) the Commission is satisfied of Direct Energy’s and Calpine’s equity,” reads a footnote in the order (here). Continue reading →

With a competitive service provider, you pay it and not the utility for generation, transmission and fuel – the elements of electricity supply service.

When you use a competitive service provider (CSP) instead of the monopoly electricity company, what does the monopoly provider stop collecting?  Just what part of the electric bill are big customers such as Costco and Kroger and Walmart seeking to avoid by leaving Dominion Energy Virginia?

The answer is most of it, everything covered under the bill heading “Electricity Supply Service” on the sample bill illustrated above.  With a CSP, customers would stop paying Dominion for generation, transmission and fuel.  If future legislation makes retail choice the rule in Virginia, customers could leave the utility and pay a CSP for their energy and the cost to make or buy it and get it to Virginia’s local grid.  Continue reading →

Two of seventeen towers supporting the new 500kv transmission line across the James River, paid for through Rider T on your bills. Dominion photo.

Electricity bills for Dominion Energy Virginia customers jump again in September – almost $7 monthly for a residential customer using 1000 kilowatt hours – as it begins to collect on $845 million in transmission system investments over the past year.  A similar level of investment is planned for next year.

The rate hike will appear on the bills in the transmission charge, Rider T, following approval of the annual Rider T update by the State Corporation Commission July 25.  The final order is here.  Continue reading →

Outdoor data modules at Microsoft’s Boydton, VA server facility. Photo: Microsoft

A hearing on Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposal for a new market-based electricity rate for its largest customers opened Thursday with the announcement it had settled its differences with the State Corporation Commission staff and that part of the dispute was over.  (The case file is here.)

As the SCC staff lined up with the utility, one of Dominion’s competitors – which has intervened in the case – took a harder line against proposal.  Direct Energy Services LLC’s attorney Cliona M. Robb complained this is not a true market-based rate, but “a means for Dominion to negotiate special deals” without the SCC oversight usually required on single-company contracts.

One of the huge customers Dominion and Direct Energy are fighting over, Microsoft with its Virginia server farms, showed no enthusiasm for the compromise the SCC staff had negotiated.  Microsoft is the only Dominion customer taking an active role in the dispute.  It complains that the new rules are too vague and too favorable to the utility.  It wants them to be much clearer, adding an “or else.”  Continue reading →

Dominion Energy Virginia has opened a new and aggressive front in its economic war against companies seeking to offer Virginians retail choice for electricity service, directly attacking two firms promising 100 percent renewable energy to lure away environmentally minded customers.

In separate filings on July 15, the utility charged that both Direct Energy Services LLC and Calpine Energy Solutions LLC are not meeting the requirements under the law to claim they are offering 100 percent renewable energy.   It asks the State Corporation Commission for a declaratory judgment on those requirements and refuses to transfer any more of its customer accounts over to those firms until the SCC rules.  Here is the motion against Direct Energy and here is the similar move against Calpine.

Both companies quickly responded with motions for  injunctive relief, asking the SCC to order Dominion to continue transferring customers until the dispute is resolved.  How many customers have signed up for the competitive service providers only to be held in limbo is not included in the filings, although Calpine provided a confidential list to the SCC.  Continue reading →