The State Corporation Commission lightly tapped Dominion Energy on the wrist this week, telling the utility that it needs to better plan ahead to meet a legal requirement to retire its fossil fuel power plants by 2045.
This directive from the SCC was handed down on Tuesday as the commission formally accepted Dominion Energy’s 15-year long-term power plan as being “legally sufficient,” while noting in the same paragraph in its July 15 Final Order that its finding does not indicate approval of the “magnitude or specifics of Dominion’s future spending plans.”
“For Dominion’s next IRP filing, to better inform how the electric utility intends to meet its obligation to provide electric generation service for use by its retail customers over the planning period, the Company shall use a study period commensurate with the 20-year PJM forecast window,” the SCC wrote in its Final Order.
The commission also advised the utility to include in its planning scenarios the return of Virginia to participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which the MAGA governor, Glenn Youngkin, moved to withdraw the state from in 2023.
It would stand to reason that if Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic Party nominee for governor, wins in the 2025 state elections, as expected, she will move quickly to return Virginia to the RGGI, a multi-state compact that has held energy costs for consumers in its member states in line as costs have risen sharply in the rest of the country.
“The old saying goes ‘if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.’ In this case, Dominion Energy failed to produce a plan to retire its polluting power plants by 2045, as required by law,” said Peter Anderson, Director of State Energy Policy with Appalachian Voices.
“While the commission directs the company to model in its next IRP at least one scenario where these fossil plants are retired, Virginians will have to wait until October 2026 to see that plan. This could leave the Commonwealth vulnerable to the development of new expensive and polluting infrastructure in the interim,” Anderson said.
“This was an opportunity to right the ship and get Dominion to set Virginia up for success, or at the very least, to produce meaningful, well-supported plans that comply with the law and show customers how the utility plans to spend their money for the next several years,” said Nate Benforado, Senior Attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“The commission ordered some solid improvements to the planning process moving forward, but in the meantime, customers are left with many unanswered questions and members of environmental justice communities are left with even more. Dominion may attempt to proceed with its ‘accepted’ polluting plan, even though the commission has recognized it is the product of a flawed process,” Benforado said.
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Chris Graham
