FERC Commissioner Mark Christie of Virginia
By Steve Haner
“If we always keep as our focus what is best for consumers, in getting them reliable power for the least cost, then I think that’s the main guidepost we ought to follow.”
That was Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie’s opening quote on a PBS broadcast on energy issues due to air April 9, but the 26- minute program can already be found on the network’s website and Christie distributed it via X today. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Utilities
Tagged Stephen D. Haner, VCEA
Senator David Marsden, D-Fairfax, sees “serious problems” in Virginia’s net zero laws.
By Steve Haner
For the third year in a row, Democrats in the Virginia Senate have shot down an effort to divorce Virginia’s auto dealers from California’s impending mandates on electric vehicle sales. But before the predetermined vote went down, the new chair of the committee made a surprise announcement that he and his colleagues are open to revisiting Virginia’s legal rush to end fossil fuels.
Senator David Marsden, D-Fairfax, said he and Senator Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, have discussed using the period between the 2024 and 2025 General Assembly sessions to convene a conference on the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) and the many other statues they passed to suppress coal, oil and natural gas use. Republicans later shared his musings on X.
What serious problems, Mr. Chairman? Tell us more.
Marsden is the new chair of the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee and Deeds now chairs the Commerce and Labor Committee. The Virginia Mercury noted Marsden’s comments at the tail end of its report on the meeting, but it was the only actual news to break out that afternoon. The Richmond Times-Dispatch failed to mention Marsden’s announcement but had a nice photo of a half-empty Tesla charging lot in California.
Truth would have been better served by a photo of the stranded EV’s waiting for crowded, failing chargers in frigid climes this week. There is a reason consumers have not been rushing to buy EV’s at the expected rates. Despite the happy talk from mandate proponents, the targets are pie-in-the-sky. The only winner in this whole process is Tesla, getting rich selling carbon credits under the cap-and-trade element of the California regime. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities
Tagged Stephen D. Haner, VCEA
By Steve Haner
A hearing examiner at the Virginia State Corporation Commission has recommended rejection of Dominion Virginia Energy’s plan to maintain and add to its fleet of fossil fuel generators. It failed to overcome the presumption in state law that all such plants must go away, she wrote.
In her extensive report following the months-long regulatory battle, Ann Berkebile notes that the Commission itself (still hobbled with only one full member and a retired commissioner sitting in) may reach a different conclusion. And the pending case, Dominion’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), does not actually involve final decisions on what power plants to add or delete from its assets in coming years.
But Dominion was looking for a blessing from the Commission on its proposal to maintain most of its natural gas plants and even add one, a 1,000 megawatt facility it wants to place in Chesterfield County. The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act has set a schedule for their retirement, with all fossil fuel generation expected to be gone in about 20 years. Dominion’s announcement last May that it was seeking to keep and add to its natural gas plants was immediately denounced by environmental advocates.
The 2020 legislation included a provision to allow the SCC to approve an additional fossil fuel plant if a utility demonstrates “that it has already met the energy savings goals identified in § 56-596.2 and that the identified need cannot be met more affordably through the deployment or utilization of demand-side resources or energy storage resources and that it has considered and weighed alternative options, including third-party market alternatives, in its selection process.” Continue reading
Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities
Tagged Dominion, Stephen D. Haner, VCEA
Joe Bourne of Protect Sandbridge Beach opens the May 4 hearing on the Kitty Hawk North request to bring major power lines ashore in Virginia Beach.
by Steve Haner
One four-hour public hearing was not enough. Virginia Beach City Council wants another such debate before it votes on a wind company’s request to bring power cables ashore at Sandbridge Beach.
Last week’s hearing on Kitty Hawk North’s application for an easement to bury cables apparently was not covered by any Hampton Roads news media. Almost half of the time (watch it here) was used by the company’s speakers, both before and after the public spoke. Parent firm Avangrid Renewables LLC personnel were at the podium for so long because of questions from council members. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment, Land use & development, Regulation, Utilities
Tagged Stephen D. Haner, VCEA
Cover for the 2023 update of Appalachian Power Company’s plan to comply with the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) in coming decades.
by Steve Haner
Appalachian Power Company (APCO), serving Western Virginia, has now filed its annual update on Virginia Clean Economy Act compliance, including long term bill impact estimates. As the State Corporation Commission begins its review process, here are some highlights:
Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities
Tagged APCO, Stephen D. Haner, VCEA
by Steve Haner
Customer cost projections for compliance with the Virginia Clean Economy Act have increased again from the first such estimates made in 2020. The bill for 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity from Dominion Energy Virginia to power a home for a month may rise almost $100, or 83%, by 2035.
Dominion residential customers were already paying $288 (21%) more per year for 1,000 kilowatt hours per month by December 2022, compared to May 2020, just before VCEA became law. That will cost another $547 annually by 2030 and $878 more by 2035. Cost projections are even higher for commercial and industrial customers.
After all the hyped discussion coming out of the 2023 General Assembly that regulatory changes it made will “lower electricity bills,” it is important to face reality. Ignore claims from any incumbents who say they voted to “lower bills.” VCEA compliance is still going to be very expensive, and nothing just passed changes any of that.
The most recent figures are very similar and slightly higher than those reported in 2020. They were filed last year by the utility as part of the annual VCEA compliance plan, outlining its planned conversion from fossil fuel generation to massive amounts of wind and solar power over the next two decades. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment, Regulation, Utilities
Tagged Dominion, Stephen D. Haner, VCEA
Whether Dominion is building the solar farm or just buying its output makes a huge difference in cost.
by Steve Haner
In preparing for the latest round of new additions to its solar generation assets, Dominion Energy Virginia rejected eight privately- developed projects which were substantially cheaper than the projects it wanted to build on its own with ratepayer money. Just how much more expensive the company-owned projects will be is not clear, but the higher costs will be locked in for decades.
It is the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act which is driving the massive solar buildout, and one part of the statute is being read one way by the utility and another way by most of the other stakeholders. Dominion believes the law requires it to provide a fixed 35% of the new renewable electricity from third-party providers under long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). It claims the law dictates that it must own 65% of the generation assets directly.
Just about every other party to the most recent application for new solar believes that 35% is a floor, a “no less than” target, and a higher percentage could be from PPAs. Entities taking that position include the Office of the Attorney General, environmental activists, and even large electricity users such as Walmart. The issue dominates final arguments on the application filed this week at the State Corporation Commission.
What is the solar price differential? As with far too many of these disputes, most of the key financial information is confidential, available only to case participants who have filed a promise to maintain secrecy. But in its final brief, the staff for Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) provides some dramatic comparisons. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment, General Assembly, Regulation, Utilities
Tagged Dominion, Stephen D. Haner, VCEA
by Bill O’Keefe
With the two chambers of the General Assembly politically divided, there is no hope for a bipartisan compromise on changing the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Without change, we are stuck with a radical energy policy that will enrich Dominion and leave consumers holding the bag. VCEA will stand as a monument to hubris.
There is one course of action that the Democrat-controlled Senate might be willing to accept, and that is subjecting Dominion’s approach to a “Red Team” review. If the GA can’t agree to do that type of review, the SCC could undertake it on its own.
The “Red Team” concept was developed by the Department of Defense to provide a means to realistically validate the strength and quality of strategies or policies by employing an outside perspective. A Red Team’s review evaluates whether a proposal is robust and complete. The use of red teaming has expanded broadly within government and the private sector.
Dominion and the Democrat Senate are by now so deeply committed to the offshore wind farm and to the VCEA mandates that it is impossible for either to take a fresh, objective look at either.
There are a number of reasons why a “Red Team” analysis is needed. Continue reading
Posted in Energy
Tagged Bill O'Keefe, Dominion, renewable energy, VCEA, Virginia General Assembly
