Tag Archives: Dominion

Dominion’s Meddling In Governor’s Race More Despicable than Originally Revealed

Posted on February 26, 2022 by | 27 comments

by Paul Chesser

In October, Bacon’s Rebellion contributor Steve Haner outlined a “despicable act” perpetrated by Dominion Energy on Glenn Youngkin, by sending $200,000 to a mystery PAC created to suppress turnout for the Republican gubernatorial candidate.

But now, with further public disclosures, we see the devious actions by Dominion CEO (and former Democrat operative) Bob Blue and other top executives were more “despicable” than first thought.

The severity was greater partly because Dominion actually sent $250,000 to Accountability Virginia PAC, which posed as a right-leaning group in order to raise doubts about Youngkin’s 2nd Amendment credentials with rural voters. The political strategy was to diminish enthusiasm – and therefore turnout – for the now-governor.

But the degree of deceit has even more to do with the timeline of the contributions rather than the aggregate amount. Continue reading →

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Posted in Money in politics

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Reliable Electricity Not Part of the Plan

Posted on February 23, 2022 by | 29 comments

The amount of storage will matter.

by David Wojick

I recently published a report on how Virginia’s big electric power utility, Dominion Energy Virginia, deliberately ignores the fact that the state’s zero emission law does not work. Utilities are doing this around the country. They will make a fortune building useless wind and solar generation before they finally admit it does not work and have to revive the abolished “power generated when needed.”

VCEA is the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which foolishly mandates zero emissions from electric power generation by 2045. Below is the executive summary of my analysis on Dominion’s VCEA compliance plan, building on the engineering realities I outlined previously.

“Reliability means designing for the likely worst case. With conventional generation this means supplying peak need, also called peak demand. When counting on solar or wind there is also the critical issue of minimum supply backed up by storage. The reliability analysis reported here looks at minimum supply with battery storage under VCEA, in two separate steps. Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, Regulations and Government Oversight

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VCEA Added Costs Exceed $2,000 per Household?

Posted on February 9, 2022 by | 34 comments

Center of the American Experiment estimate of the cost per megawatt hour of different forms of electricity generation. The red section it adds to renewables is the cost of battery backup. Click for larger view.

by Steve Haner

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

By 2050 Virginia’s transition to wind and solar power under the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) could add almost $200 a month on average to a residential electric bill. Previous estimates of the consumer cost of dumping all fossil fuels from power generation have focused on the next ten years or so, but a new analysis looks beyond that to the actual deadline for the completed conversion.

Commercial and industrial customers would see comparable explosions in cost. These projections are far higher than those prepared by our own State Corporation Commission for two reasons: the SCC estimates do not cover the later years when the utilities must reach full compliance, and therefore do not include all the coming new investments into the late 2030s and 2040s.

The Center of the American Experiment in Minnesota, which has looked at similar proposals around the country, estimates that Virginia energy ratepayers of all classes will need to pay out an extra $203 billion over two and a half decades, close to half of it the utility profit margin on the massive new solar, wind, battery and related transmission facilities.

The Virginia General Assembly is currently considering either repealing or amending the 2020 VCEA, which dictated that Virginia’s major electric utilities must eventually stop using coal, natural gas or other fuels that emit carbon dioxide. Continue reading →

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Posted in Consumer Protection, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Bills Reversing Green New Deal Advance, Stutter

Posted on February 4, 2022 by | 72 comments

The first 176 offshore wind turbines and transmission lines Dominion Energy has applied to build off Virginia Beach for a cost (expect increases) of $10 billion.

by Steve Haner

“To say that an electric stove is as good as a gas one is misunderstanding the art of cooking.”

That line was used by a restaurant industry lobbyist February 3 in a House of Delegates committee debate on a bill seeking to protect the use of natural gas in Virginia homes and businesses. He later claimed it originated with a chef in San Francisco, where local governments have been passing ordinances to ban gas use.

The bill, House Bill 1257, then went on to fail, with all nine Democrats on the House Commerce and Energy Committee voting against it. All the Republicans present voted for it, but three were out of the room and the vote tied 9-9. The same committee may take the bill up again Tuesday for another effort at passage.

That was the first of three votes Thursday on efforts to roll back the Virginia Clean Economy Act and related measures approved during the two years of Democratic hegemony. The Democrats’ package of legislation has the ultimate goal of ending use of fossil fuels pretty much anywhere in the Virginia economy in the next 25 years. Most voters remain unaware.

The same meeting where the right to natural gas bill could return should include two other bills which were approved on party-line votes in subcommittee Thursday night. The subcommittee voted 6-4 for House Bill 118 and House Bill 73, with opponents claiming they would mean the end of plans to build hundreds of giant generation turbines off the shore of Virginia Beach. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Money in politics, Regulations and Government Oversight

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First Bill to Amend VCEA Buried by Committee

Posted on January 26, 2022 by | 14 comments

Failed bill may have given the SCC a path to refuse Dominion’s proposed offshore wind project.

by Steve Haner

The first of several pending bills to slow Virginia’s rush to an expensive energy future based on unreliable electricity just failed in a Republican-controlled committee. There is every reason to expect the same fate for two other pending measures with similar goals.

In past years energy bills have gone to a subcommittee, usually for consideration in concert with similar bills on the same topic. House Bill 839, sponsored by Delegate Tony Wilt, R-Harrisonburg, appeared by itself Tuesday on the docket of the full House Commerce and Energy Committee.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Money in politics, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Do Not Move RGGI Tax Into Utility Base Rates

Posted on January 25, 2022 by | 24 comments

by Steve Haner

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) is seeking to get Virginia out of a regional carbon tax compact, yet inexplicably has offered supporters of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) a path to protect it.

His proposal would remove the tax on monthly electric bills which has galvanized opposition and move the cost of the mandated carbon allowances into the base rates of Dominion Energy Virginia. If somebody told Youngkin that was a benefit to the taxpayers, he was misled. It still costs us money.

Who benefits from his move, especially if it becomes a long-term approach? The utility does, as it is still using ratepayer money, and also the various special interest spending programs now being supported with the RGGI taxes. The state collected $228 million last year and will likely collect $300 million in 2022.

The proposal is in the form of a budget amendment to House and Senate Bills 29, the so-called “caboose” bill that makes amendments to the budget now in force. As a language amendment to the caboose bill, if adopted, it technically would expire as of June 30, 2022.

The danger, and do not think for a moment I’m the first to see this, is that the amendment could migrate to House and Senate Bills 30, the new budget, and be in force from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2024. By then, the RGGI tax costs would be established as a regular cost of doing business. It would reduce the excess profits that fund the customer rebates like those the State Corporation Commission just ordered and reduce the chance future excess profits might spark a rate cut. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Government Finance, Regulations and Government Oversight, Taxes

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Energy Reliability, Cost Concern Some Democrats?

Posted on January 20, 2022 by | 62 comments

by Steve Haner

First published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

The Department of Energy, in consultation with the Department of Environmental Quality, shall analyze the life cycle of renewable energy facilities, including solar, wind, and battery storage components. The analysis shall assess the (i) feasibility, costs, recycling and salvage opportunities, waste strategies, and liability for the decommissioning of materials; (ii) potential impacts of underground infrastructure post-decommissioning; and (iii) potential impacts of the life cycle on farming, forestry, and sensitive wetlands.

Now what science-denying Republican tool of the fossil fuel industry put in that silly bill? No, wait:  Senate Bill 499 is sponsored by a Democratic state senator, Lynwood Lewis from the Eastern Shore. (And, Senator, you should amend the bill to cover the life cycle impacts of offshore wind on our ocean, and those retirement costs.) Continue reading →

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Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight

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A Regulatory Path to End the RGGI Carbon Tax

Posted on January 18, 2022 by | 22 comments

The states currently in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative compact.

by Steve Haner

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

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) will proceed to remove Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon tax compact by the same route Virginia entered it: he will push to repeal the underlying regulation.

As with much else in his promised “Day One” agenda, it will actually take time. What he gave Virginia on Day One was an executive order outlining the coming steps, which still must follow the letter of Virginia’s administrative process rules. Regulations are created, amended and repealed routinely.

His administration will also notify the RGGI organization of Virginia’s intent to withdraw, a step contemplated and allowed under the governing memorandum of understanding.

It was a vote of the Air Pollution Control Board, citing authority over airborne carbon dioxide emissions, that implemented the cap and trade rules that require electric power producers to buy carbon allowances. That allowance cost is then passed on to power customers, in the case of Dominion Energy Virginia customers, directly on every month’s bill. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, Flooding, Regulations and Government Oversight, Taxes

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Who Funded Voter Suppression in Rural Virginia?

Posted on January 17, 2022 by | 20 comments

by James A. Bacon

It caused quite the brouhaha when Axios published a story in September on how a Democratic PAC posed as a conservative outfit to depress Republican voter turnout in Southwest Virginia by raising questions about Glenn Youngkin’s commitment to gun rights. Dominion Energy had donated $200,000 to the effort, run by Accountability Virginia PAC. Two days after the news broke Dominion said it had failed to vet the group and wanted its money back. The furor died down, and little has been heard of it since. Until today.

Duane Yancey with Cardinal News checked the final filings for the  Accountability Virginia PAC, which weren’t reported until after the election. It turns out that Dominion had donated a total of $250,000 — $50,000 more than originally reported — while four Dominion executives had chipped in another $27,500. Between the corporation and its executives, Dominion accounted for 47.9% of the PAC’s total contributions.

There is no indication, says Yancey, that they got their money back.

Almost all the other donors were out-of-state venture capitalists and financiers known to be donors to Democratic politics. Read Yancey’s list for the full accounting, as well as his spin on the news: “Trying to discourage people from voting is wrong, no matter which side is trying to do it.”

It is possible that the blowback against Dominion has just begun. Continue reading →

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Posted in Money in politics

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Can Financially Failing Coal Plant Be Closed?

Posted on January 13, 2022 by | 8 comments

Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, St. Paul, VA. Dominion Photo.

by Steve Haner

The economic decision on whether and when to cut and run from a losing investment is always complicated. The debate over the future of Dominion Energy Virginia’s economically failing coal plant in Wise County will be complicated by power politics.

The State Corporation Commission has been asked to accept an agreement between the utility, the Office of the Attorney General and environmental opponents of fossil fuel generation to consider closing the plant in just a few years. The stipulation calls for a report later this year on the economic cost and benefits of pulling the plug as soon as 2026.

Dominion has been proposing to operate the plant, which opened in 2012, until at least 2045. Legally it can, despite the move away from fossil fuels in recent state laws. In the pending matter before the SCC, it continued to argue Wise County should stay open despite the economic losses.

The economic costs either way will fall mainly on the company’s customers. We have been subsidizing the operation of the money-losing plant as it sank into red ink. But if the decision is made to close it, the utility will seek to recover – from its customers – the $1.6 billion of outstanding investment it has in the facility.  Heads they win and tails we lose.

That’s how we do electric power regulation in Virginia. It was the General Assembly that mandated construction of the plant, far outside Dominion’s service territory, in 2007 legislation riddled with political trade-offs. The investment would never have been found reasonable and prudent by the SCC absent legislative interference, but was deemed “in the public interest” by law. Continue reading →

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Posted in Economic development, Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Dominion Green Energy Conversion Cost Dips, Partly by Sacrificing Reliability

Posted on December 28, 2021 by | 23 comments

by Steve Haner

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

The projected consumer cost of Dominion Energy Virginia’s conversion to wind and solar power rises steeply in the utility’s latest capital spending plan. Although slightly reduced from earlier estimates, the utility told the State Corporation Commission its residential customers may see prices jump more than 50% by 2030 and 70% by 2035.

The higher consumer energy costs expected from going “green” became a political talking point during the last election. Another effort is expected in the 2022 General Assembly to revise or repeal the Virginia Clean Economy Act. That 2020 legislation mandated the coming move to wind and solar and the end of fossil fuels, but it passed only narrowly on largely party-line votes.

In 2020, the Commission staff reviewed the company’s capital plan and predicted that by 2030, a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours per month would pay up to $808 more per year. In this recent review, the projection using the SCC staff assumptions comes out to $733 more per year ($61 per month) by 2030, still a 53% increase above 2020 levels.

What changed? For one thing, Dominion altered the plan by removing some additional natural gas generation it was planning to build. The 970 megawatts of new gas plants were intended to add reliability to the system as the intermittent wind and solar plants became a larger part of the daily power mix. Dominion may have lowered its projected costs by sacrificing its safety net. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Youngkin to Withdraw From RGGI, End Carbon Tax

Posted on December 8, 2021 by | 24 comments

The RGGI member states.

By Steve Haner

First published by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin told a business audience Wednesday afternoon that he intends to withdraw Virginia from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. His decision came two days after Dominion Energy Virginia filed a petition to increase the RGGI tax on its bills by 83% next year.

“RGGI describes itself as a regional market for carbon,” Youngkin told a meeting of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. “But it is really a carbon tax that is fully passed on to ratepayers. It is a bad deal for Virginians. It is a bad deal for business and as governor, I will withdraw us from RGGI by executive action. I promised to lower the cost of living in Virginia and this is just the beginning.”

The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy sought to dissuade the state from joining RGGI and imposing this carbon tax and has reported often on the development and imposition of Dominion’s bill adder to collect it. We applaud this decision, knowing that Youngkin may face a struggle to implement it.

Virginia has been part of the interstate tax, cap and trade compact for a year now. Every large electrical generating facility in the state must buy allowances in a multi-state auction equal to the number of tons of carbon dioxide its operations will emit. With the only large fleet of Virginia coal and gas generators, this is basically about Dominion Energy Virginia and its 2.6 million customer accounts. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight, Taxes

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What Dominion is Hiding in its Wind Application

Posted on November 12, 2021 by | 34 comments

The cover page that declares we the ratepayers cannot see how Dominion Energy Virginia has calculated the levelized cost of energy for its $10 billion offshore wind project. The SCC should break this seal and open this document.

by Steve Haner

When an applicant at the State Corporation Commission claims certain information is proprietary, or extraordinarily sensitive, a reader not privy to the full document can at least get an idea what is missing.

What is missing from the application Dominion Energy Virginia recently filed at the SCC, a document so dense and complex it was broken into eleven volumes, with 61 separate documents (here)? (That is not counting the tables of contents.) Here are some of the topics masked from view that turned up in a cursory review (in the order they appear in the documents): Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight

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Turbine Costs Appear on Dominion Bills in 2022?

Posted on November 8, 2021 by | 43 comments

Illustration of Dominion’s wind project from its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management documentation.

by Steve Haner

Customers of Dominion Energy Virginia will begin to pay for its planned 176 wind turbines off the coast of Virginia Beach next September, years before the first electricity is produced, if the company’s request for initial project funding is approved by the State Corporation Commission.

As with all such projects now, the bill will be paid through a specific addition to monthly bills, a rate adjustment clause or RAC. The cost for residential customers will work out to $1.45 per 1,000 kilowatt hours, but that is just for the first rate year beginning in 2022. In a news release Friday, the company claimed eventually the “net” cost to residential users would be $4 per 1,000 kWh, but that includes assumptions about future tax benefits and future costs of the alternatives abandoned.

The gross cost to consumers may be buried somewhere in the mound of Dominion documents that now constitute the full application. Or it may be among the items of data which the company seeks to withhold from public view.

On Friday, the record of the case was just a few cover letters and the company’s motion asking the SCC to let it keep much of the key information confidential.  Monday up to 40 (40!) additional documents were posted on the SCC’s case file, full of some details, but reviewing a table of contents one can see example after example of information redacted, in anticipation of SCC approval of the motion for secrecy. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulations and Government Oversight

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General Herring: Air All Data in Wind Application

Posted on November 6, 2021 by | 14 comments

Attorney General Mark R. Herring

An open letter to Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring:

Dear General Herring:

As was reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dominion Energy Virginia filed on Friday its application for approval to build offshore wind turbines with a nameplate capacity of 2,600 megawatts. The very first motion made to the State Corporation Commission was a request to keep all the important financial and engineering information confidential, away from public inspection.

I write as a Dominion customer and write to you in your statutory role as the representative for consumers before the SCC.  You are my lawyer.

Please do everything in your power to persuade the SCC to reject that motion for secrecy. On behalf of the people of Virginia, break that seal. I hope other likely parties in the case will join you, but you should take the lead. There is no justification for hiding all the reams of information which will be produced in the coming review, and which will have a direct impact on the cost and reliability of our electricity for decades to come.

Waiting until the smoke had cleared from the recent election, in which the company embarrassed itself, the announcement included an admission that the price of the proposed project has already risen more than 20% to almost $10 billion.

There has long been too much secrecy in the SCC’s cases, a complaint I have aired several times in various forums. This has been accompanied by a reduction in the amount of attention given to these matters in the traditional news media, with the most active news source these days hardly objective but instead a cheerleader for this unreliable, intermittent electricity source. Continue reading →

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