How Is the New Double Dip any Different from the Old Double Dip?

The House of Delegates passed its own version of electric-utility regulatory reform yesterday. The big news is that the House amended the legislative compromise struck between Governor Ralph Northam, the electric utilities, and other key stakeholders to ensure that it prevents the dreaded “double dip.”

Reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The Virginia Attorney General’s Office and the commission have warned that the bill still restricts the ability of the commission to order refunds and lower base rates and also allows utilities to double charge for the grid and renewable investments: Once by canceling out refunds and again by including the projects in the rate base upon which they earn a profit.

“The governor’s office doesn’t believe that there is a double dip in the bill,” Toscano said Monday. “The entire Democratic caucus was taking the position that if there was no double dip in the bill like everyone has asserted, we will make sure the language is absolutely, positively clear.”

I don’t understand how this arrangement would differ substantively from the way rate regulation always worked. Permit me to express my perplexity with a hypothetical example:

Let’s say Dominion Energy Virginia wants to spend $100 million on burying distribution lines prone to disruption in severe weather events. That may or may not be a sound use of the money, but that’s not the question. The question is how Dominion would be compensated for that investment under the proposed new rules.

First, let’s assume that the utility is raking in excess revenue. Rather than rebate the excess to rate payers, Dominion gets to “reinvest” that money in a panoply of grid modernization projects of which distribution line undergrounding is one. Rate payers don’t get the money rebated to them. That’s the first dip. Then Dominion gets to build that $100 million investment into its rate base, and it gets to generate a return on investment — let’s say 10% for purposes of simplicity — until it is fully depreciated. Instead of rate payers getting to generate income on that $100 million, Dominion gets to pocket the income. That extra $10 million constitutes the double dip.

But that’s not the whole story! Under the pre-rate freeze regulatory regime that governed rate setting until 2015, Dominion would have filed for a rider, or Rate Adjustment Clause, to cover the $100 million capital investment of burying the power lines. As I understand it, Dominion also would have been entitled to recover not just the up-front capital but the cost of capital — about 10%.

Under the Northam-Dominion compromise, Dominion would not get to file a rider. Call that a reverse double dip. Rate payers would benefit the once because Dominion doesn’t get its $100 million back through a rider. And they would benefit twice because Dominion wouldn’t get to recover its cost of capital. In other words, it’s a wash. The only difference is that the expense is embedded in the “base” rates instead of in a rate adjustment clause.

Now, there are many other issues one might raise about the re-regulation legislation. Does it undermine the State Corporation Commission’s role overseeing electric utilities? Should the General Assembly declare massive “grid modernization” investments in solar power, wind power, pumped storage, energy-efficiency, smart grid investments, and underground burying of transmission and distribution lines to be in the “public interest,” thus lowering the bar for SCC approval? Great questions, let’s debate!

But double dipping? Dominion won’t get any more licks of ice cream than it did before — unless I am missing something. If I am, I beg you, please explain how the proposed new double dipping differs from the old double dipping. If your explanation makes sense, I will publish it on the blog.

Update: As you can read in the comments, Tom Hadwin and I went back and forth on this issue. Here is how I now understand it:

(1) Rate payers lose the $100 million rebate.
(2) Then the $100 million goes into the rate base, where it must be repaid to Dominion. (That’s the point I wasn’t comprehending before.)
(3) Plus ratepayers pay Dominion a 10% rate of return on the $100 million.
(4) Dominion does not file a Rate Adjustment Clause (RAC), saving rate payers $100 million.
(5) With no RAC, Dominion doesn’t earn 10%, and rate payers don’t have to pay it.