Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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What Does Dominion Lose When Customers Leave?
When you use a competitive service provider (CSP) instead of the monopoly electricity company, what does the monopoly provider stop collecting? Just what part of the electric bill are big customers such as Costco and Kroger and Walmart seeking to avoid by leaving Dominion Energy Virginia? The answer is most of it, everything covered under…
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No Appeal Filed on RGGI Regulation, Now In Force
Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is now fully authorized under a new state regulation, and the deadline to appeal that regulation has now passed with no appeal filed. The text of the regulation is here. Language inserted by General Assembly Republicans into the current state budget merely puts RGGI membership and…
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$7 More on Dominion Bills for Transmission
Electricity bills for Dominion Energy Virginia customers jump again in September – almost $7 monthly for a residential customer using 1000 kilowatt hours – as it begins to collect on $845 million in transmission system investments over the past year. A similar level of investment is planned for next year. The rate hike will appear…
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New Industrial Rate Still Challenged By Microsoft
A hearing on Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposal for a new market-based electricity rate for its largest customers opened Thursday with the announcement it had settled its differences with the State Corporation Commission staff and that part of the dispute was over. (The case file is here.) As the SCC staff lined up with the utility,…
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New Front In Dominion’s War Against Competition
Dominion Energy Virginia has opened a new and aggressive front in its economic war against companies seeking to offer Virginians retail choice for electricity service, directly attacking two firms promising 100 percent renewable energy to lure away environmentally minded customers. In separate filings on July 15, the utility charged that both Direct Energy Services LLC…
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You Want Solar? Swear Fealty to the Monopoly
The push to create retail electricity choice about to start in Virginia is already fully underway in Florida, with the dominant utility there first proposing and then abandoning a stunning opposition tactic. It wanted to offer an attractive solar option only to customers loyal to its monopoly. The recent Miami Herald story (here), accompanied by…
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Dominion’s IRP Approved, With High Costs Detailed
The State Corporation Commission today approved Dominion Energy Virginia’s Integrated Resource Plan, laying out possible investment combinations to keep the power flowing in its territory over the next fifteen years. It also laid out the costs, in excess of $18 billion of investments plus interest plus profit margin to be paid by future customers. The…
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Illinois to Legalize Recreational Pot: Implications for Virginia
Legal tokin’ in the Land of Lincoln. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign Illinois’ recreational marijuana legalization bill tomorrow. Illinois, America’s sixth most populous state, will become the 11th state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. The District of Columbia has also legalized the possession of ganja. This has implications for Virginia.…
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Fix the General Assembly, Then Tackle Energy Bill
It has been over a month since a coalition of unnatural allies announced a proposal to revise Virginia’s electricity regulation system – again – but the idea dropped from view fairly quickly. One of the main and most visible proponents, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, has now taken on a very different role in…
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More (But Not All) Cost Projections Filed About Ratepayer Bill Transformation Act
With some of its closest legislative allies facing primary challenges next week, much of what Dominion Energy Virginia filed Friday in response to questions about the consumer cost of its future plans is redacted. The story in Tuesday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch (here) could only cover that portion of the data not kept secret. Three of the…
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Rider E Case Shows Many Flaws With This Process
Dominion Energy Virginia’s pending application for a new charge on electric bills for coal ash remediation is both a fairly routine request and an illustration of what is deeply wrong with Virginia’s electricity regulation. When the major investor-owned utilities negotiated a return to regulation in 2007, the ability to create and collect these stand-alone add-on…
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SCC Again Denies Escape from Dominion Monopoly
The State Corporation Commission has denied another request from a major Virginia retailer for permission to escape from Dominion Energy Virginia’s monopoly electricity service. The score for such petitions is now one approval, two denials, and the message is clear to all the other petitioners: Go fight it out at the General Assembly. The petition…
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Meet GOP Carbon Tax Advocate Bob Inglis
There is a hotbed of carbon tax advocacy at George Mason University, led by a former GOP congressman sent packing by South Carolina voters because he’s ready to tax them into loving solar and wind.
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Update: Aggregation Petition Moves to Full SCC
The debate over retail aggregation and choice for electricity underway at the State Corporation Commission is moving to another decision point, with a hearing examiner’s ruling May 21 on one of the many petitions.
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Correction: DLS Was There At Energy Conference
There was a Division of Legislative Services staff person present at the recent National Regulatory Conference in Williamsburg. My piece yesterday was in error. Attorney Christine Noonan’s name was on the list and I missed it. She’s been at DLS for a while, but only this session started as staff support for the committees doing…