Tag Archives: Dominion

“Strong Words” In Bills Give SCC Power On Rates

Posted on January 24, 2023 by | 15 comments

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.

The House version of the bill, House Bill 1604, has bipartisan sponsorship. The Senate version, Senate Bill 1321 has three Democrats listed as sponsors. It is the Senate version which at least has been aired in an open Senate subcommittee meeting, and the leading Dominion lobbyist in the room was not coy about his concerns. So far, the House version slumbers and has not been heard.

During the Senate discussion, William Murray, the firm’s senior vice president for corporate affairs, noted the presence in the bill of “strong words,” which he said included “notwithstanding” and “any.” He warned the legislators in the meeting that “our concern would be if you just mooted everything you did in Senator Saslaw’s bill.” The Richard Saslaw-sponsored bill he referred to is Dominion’s main effort to recast its regulatory environment, which had just been discussed in the same meeting on January 18. It was first reported here. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Energy, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Is Unnamed Partner on Wind Project Driving This New Dominion Regulation Rewrite?

Posted on January 22, 2023 by | 46 comments

The late Lt. Gov. Henry Howell (D) and Virginia’s most famous campaign slogan.

By Steve Haner

Without fanfare and without awakening the drowsy Capitol press corps, Dominion Energy Virginia dropped in legislation last week to set up a partnership on its most massive capital investment, the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

Just who that partner might be, what if any benefits that provides to Dominion’s 2.6 million Virginia customers, or whether it instead adds cost and risk for them, remains unexplained. The bill does describe the equity investor as “non-controlling,” leaving the utility in charge.

Suddenly, many elements of the company’s other significant bill for 2023 make more sense. The most recent iteration is a pending substitute. In this other, wind-only bill, sponsored by Senator Lynwood Lewis, D-Accomac, the State Corporation Commission is instructed to disregard the capital structure of the partner, its debt to equity ratio, when determining the price to consumers.

That ratio is usually a key element when the regulators are deciding how much a utility can charge for a project, because only equity is allowed to earn profit.  In the longer bill, which has been previously discussed, Dominion is also asking the legislature to mandate how the SCC accounts for the debt and equity in its rate calculation.

The unnamed partner, perhaps already known to Dominion, may also have an interest in the debate over how a future SCC calculates the utility’s allowed return on that equity. It is equity this partner will be contributing, after all.  Virginia is the only state that sets utility return on equity by making comparisons to so-called “peer” utilities. The more complex bill changes the rules on that, too, and further limits SCC discretion. Continue reading →

46 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Consumers Be Wary When Energy Elephants Dance

Posted on January 16, 2023 by | 39 comments

By Steve Haner

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

The Virginia House of Delegates is expected to vote this week to exempt certain Virginia manufacturers, which ones to be determined later, from the coming wave of energy costs created by Virginia’s rapid transition to unreliable forms of power generation. Continue reading →

39 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Manufacturing, Utilities

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Dominion Wants To Rewrite Its Own Rules Again

Posted on January 9, 2023 by | 41 comments

by Steve Haner

First published today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

The headlines in the coming General Assembly may be captured by fights over abortion and taxes, but the deepest reach into your pockets will involve your energy bills. The state’s dominant electric utility appears to once again be seeking to amend Virginia’s regulatory and ratemaking process to its benefit. Continue reading →

41 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Dominion’s Wind Gamble Could Cost Customers

Posted on December 19, 2022 by | 33 comments

by William O’Keefe

A study by the Kleiman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania concluded that reaching long-term offshore wind power targets presents serious challenges with “the most pressing being the need to build out the electric grid to reliably and economically deliver vast quantities of offshore wind power.” And that also involves building adequate storage capacity.

Although the SCC has approved Dominion’s plan for building a smart grid, it remains to be seen if its implementation will match the rhetoric and the operational needs of the offshore wind farm. Dominion has balked at being held to meeting a performance standard, which is telling.

An enhanced grid is essential because intermittent wind makes it necessary to compensate for periods of low or no wind while also matching demand and supply. Dominion is now in year three of its smart grid plan, so compatibility is based on analyses that are heavy on assumptions and light on empirical data.

The challenge facing Dominion may be best summarized by the observation that there’s a disconnect between the need for a stable grid that supplies electricity on demand 24 hours every day and the asserted moral obligation that we use non-dispatchable, intermittent, and generally unreliable renewable power in spite of the fact that intermittency is presently the enemy of a stable electric grid. California, which is far ahead of Virginia in moving to renewable energy, recognizes this. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has said the “biggest challenge of managing a greener grid is maintaining a precise balance between supply and demand as the percentage of intermittent power from renewables increases.” Continue reading →

33 Comments

Posted in Energy, Uncategorized

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SCC Drops Wind Energy Performance Standard

Posted on December 15, 2022 by | 51 comments

The 14.7 megawatt turbines to be used in CVOW. Click for larger view.

by Steve Haner

The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) has abandoned its push for an offshore wind performance standard fiercely opposed by Dominion Energy Virginia. It agreed instead to some capital cost limitations for its project that the utility has endorsed . 

In a decision released today, the two commissioners accepted in full a stipulation put forward several weeks ago by Dominion, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, Walmart and several environmental groups. Should the capital costs of the project and related transmission lines exceed $10.3 billion, customers will only have to finance a portion of the excess. Beyond $11.3 billion the utility will finance the excess. Continue reading →

51 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Virginia Agrees To Compensate Fishing Industry For Damage From Offshore Wind

Posted on December 13, 2022 by | 25 comments

by Steve Haner

Nine states, including Virginia, have agreed to establish a major compensation fund to pay their private commercial and recreational fishing companies for damages caused by offshore wind turbines.  

Three guesses where the money comes from. The announcement, made December 12, hints at it coming from project developers, but in Virginia of course that is a monopoly utility guaranteed by law to collect all costs from its customers. Dominion Energy Virginia’s planned 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) just got more expensive. In other cases and other states, also expect the bill to end up with energy consumers or taxpayers. Continue reading →

25 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Entitlements, Environment, Regulation

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RGGI Tax, On Path to Repeal, Reaches $524 Million

Posted on December 12, 2022 by | 33 comments

Virginia’s two year take of carbon taxes under RGGI. RGGI table.

by Steve Haner

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

The tax on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted by Virginia electricity plants dropped to below $13 a ton in the most recent sale of CO2 allowances conducted by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). That meant Virginia collected only $71 million in tax revenue for the fourth quarter, the lowest amount of the four auctions in 2022. Continue reading →

33 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Taxes, Utilities

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Why Does Dominion Fear a Wind Output Promise?

Posted on December 8, 2022 by | 69 comments

SG 14-222 DD test installation at a Siemens Gamesa land facility. Company photo. Click for closer view and perspective of this giant machine we’re buying.

By Steve Haner

While we await a decision by the State Corporation Commission on competing approaches for protecting consumers from unexpected offshore wind costs, some additional relevant information is worthy of notice. Two items call into question Dominion Energy Virginia’s refusal to assume financial risk for poor turbine performance. Continue reading →

69 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Utilities

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Feds: Whales Must Be Protected from Turbines

Posted on December 5, 2022 by | 53 comments

Two right whales photographed off the Virginia coast last month on their way south toward the calving grounds. U.S. Navy Photo

by Steve Haner

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

Soon after a group of opponents to proposed East Coast offshore wind projects hired a law firm with environmental regulation expertise, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced a new plan to protect North Atlantic Right Whales and put it out for public comment.

The opponents, with Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy as part of the coalition, had been pointing to the impact of the project on the whales for months and this protection and mitigation plan admits the problem is significant.

One apparent result of the announcement will be a major delay in publication of the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on Dominion Energy Virginia’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project off Virginia Beach.  The EIS was supposed to be available this past August, and once published is expected to be the focus of extended comments and perhaps litigation from opponents.

The ongoing debate at the Virginia State Corporation Commission over consumer price protections (a decision should come soon) is not the last hurdle to construction of the $10 billion project, with a much higher cost now under discussion.  That EIS clock is not even running yet. Continue reading →

53 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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SCC Urged To Focus on Wind Construction Risk

Posted on November 21, 2022 by | 35 comments

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 →

35 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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East Coast Ocean Wind Projects Faltering

Posted on November 4, 2022 by | 76 comments

Not an offshore wind project. Just a cool picture from Germany last week.

by Steve Haner

In recent days several proposed offshore wind projects, which unlike Virginia’s are not guaranteed by captive ratepayers, are showing cracks in their pylons.

Multinational developer Avangrid recently told Massachusetts regulators that its proposed 1.2 gigawatt Commonwealth Wind project is no longer economically viable. It seems to be seeking to renegotiate the power purchase agreement for more money because the electricity price it promised in the contract is being eroded by rising costs and interest rates.

Then the developer of a smaller Massachusetts project, 400 megawatt Mayflower Wind, made a similar announcement. An EE News Energy Wire story on both can be found here and included this:

Avangrid’s warning — echoed in part days later by Mayflower Wind, the developer of the state’s other upcoming offshore wind project — is the strongest signal yet that a chilling trend on renewable energy projects may migrate into the offshore wind sector.

Continue reading →

76 Comments

Posted in Consumer protection, Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Miyares Retreats from Wind Performance Standard

Posted on October 31, 2022 by | 63 comments

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 →

63 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities

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Legislators MIA on Wind Performance Standard

Posted on October 3, 2022 by | 69 comments

Del. Kaye Kory, D-Fairfax

by Steve Haner

In the ongoing debate over Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed $10 billion offshore wind project, focus should remain on the people truly responsible for undercutting State Corporation Commission authority to protect consumers: the legislators who passed provisions in the code the utility interprets as a rubber stamp for its proposals.  Continue reading →

69 Comments

Posted in Consumer protection, Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities

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Dominion is Keeping Whale Data Secret, Too

Posted on September 16, 2022 by | 31 comments

Click for expanded view. Source: NOAA

by David Wojick

Secrecy abounds around the monster offshore wind (OSW) project proposed by Dominion Energy. In this case the hidden data is about the threat to the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whales.

I earlier reported on the big hidden whale study done by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is doing the Environment Impact Assessment for this huge project.

Digging into Dominion’s filing with BOEM I found something even worse. Dominion has done an actual threat assessment, but it is 100% secret! This is outrageous.

Here is a bit of background so folks can dig for themselves. There is a lot to look at. BOEM has a separate website on this monster OSW project, which would be one of the world’s largest. The project is titled Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind or CVOW. Dominion has submitted a large set of documents in what is called the Construction and Operations Plan or simply the COP. The COP is here.

There is a long main report plus 32 technical appendices. My endangered whale interest was immediately drawn to “Appendix R: Threatened and Endangered Species Review.” It is here, and the title indicates it reports on any and all species on those lists for protection. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation

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