Carbon intensity of 100 largest electric power producers. Source: Ceres
This is the first of a series of posts based on Dominion Energy Virginia’s 2018 Integrated Resource Plan.
Regardless of what happens to federal CO2 regulations under President Trump, Dominion Energy Virginia is conducting its long-range strategic planning on the assumption that carbon regulation of power station emissions is “virtually assured in the future.”
The utility’s 2018 Integrated Resource Plan lays out its path over the next 15 years toward a lower-carbon future that includes a major commitment to solar power, tentative steps to develop offshore wind power, the phase-out of old coal-, oil- and gas-fired capacity, and the construction of several new combustion-turbine (CT) gas-fired units capable of responding quickly to fluctuations in solar power output.
By way of background, the company boasts a bit about its track record in reducing carbon emissions over the past seventeen years. “From 2000 to 2017, the carbon intensity — measured by the annual amount of CO2 emissions emitted per megawatt-hour (“MWh”) of net generation — of the Company’s units serving Virginia jurisdictional customers has declined by 35%. At the same time, power production by these units has increased by 14%.
Based on a study by Ceres, a nonprofit organization pursuing sustainable solutions, in 2015 Dominion ranked 74th out of the nation’s largest electric utilities for carbon intensity (CO2 emissions per MWh of power). The flip side of that data is that Dominion had the 27th lowest CO2 emissions per unit of power generated.
Dominion attributes its CO2 reductions to several initiatives:
- The addition of 56 MW of solar generation through the addition of the Scott, Whitehouse, and Woodland solar projects.
- Reduction of the coal-powered portion of its fleet serving Virginia customers.
- Construction of high-efficiency combined-cycle natural gas power units. Natural gas combustion releases roughly half as much CO2 per unit of heating value as coal combustion.
- The continued operation at high levels of efficiency of the company’s four nuclear units.
The utility says it will continue to press forward with CO2 cuts:
- Moving 1,200 MW of fossil-fueled capacity into cold reserve, effectively taking the aging units out of daily operation but keeping them in reserve for reactivation within six months if market conditions dictate.
- Continued expansion of solar power.
- Development of offshore wind.
- Evaluating the feasibility of building a hydroelectric pumped storage facility in Southwest Virginia to supplement variable production by solar and wind.
In Dominion’s commentary on carbon regulation, there is one glaring absence: any discussion of energy efficiency. In a press release issued today, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) asserts that Dominion ranks 50th among the 51 largest electric utilities in the U.S. in energy efficiency.
Dominion relies upon outdated modeling practices to predict future electricity demand, said the SELC, “and it doubles down on this error by proposing to satisfy that in a non-economic fashion. This approach marginalizes lower-cost options like energy efficiency and solar in favor of expensive, company-owned, customer-financed natural gas infrastructure.”
“New natural gas infrastructure won’t grow Virginia’s economy; it will only grow Dominion’s dividends,” said SELC attorney Will Cleveland.
However, as SELC acknowledges, that the Grid Transformation and Security Act of 2018 “requires” Dominion to add $870 million of energy efficiency programs over the next 10 years. Further, it should be noted that Dominion is not planning to build new combined-cycle plants like the $1 billion Brunswick and Greensville plants, which are used mainly for base load generation, but smaller, highly flexible combustion turbines that can be ramped up and down in response to fluctuations in solar and wind energy.
Tomorrow I’ll discuss Dominion’s demand forecasts, the single-most important component of the utility’s strategic plan.
