Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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Dominion Responds to Calls for Deregulation
Dominion Energy has responded to calls for electric deregulation in the form of an op-ed by William Murray, senior vice president of corporate affairs and communications. His argument: We tried deregulation once, it didn’t work, and the arrangement we have now works just fine. Electric deregulation was “in fashion” in the 1990s,” he wrote in…
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VA Energy Regulatory Conference All About Carbon
WILLIAMSBURG — “The environmentalists don’t want to admit when they’ve won, but they’ve already won.” That line was delivered by Joseph A. Rosenthal, principal attorney at Connecticut’s Office of Consumer Counsel, during a discussion Thursday on the status electricity grid modernization efforts in his state and several others. It was a part of a day-and-a-half…
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Cuccinelli to North Carolina on Electricity Regulation – Avoid Virginia’s Mistakes
The Cooch is back. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli penned an op-ed for the Wilmington, North Carolina based Star News opposing Duke Energy’s proposed changes to electrical regulation. The title of the opinion piece is, “N.C. should block this Duke Energy power grab”. Cuccinelli’s biggest issue with the pending regulation is extending the period…
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Three 2016 Dominion Solar Plants Missed Targets
Some of Dominion Energy Virginia’s recent solar installations, despite using technology designed to track the moving sun, have turned in disappointing energy results, fueling skepticism at the State Corporation Commission toward the utility’s claims for future solar energy success.
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Left-Right Coalition Urges Electric Deregulation
In the mid-1980s William W. Berry, president of Dominion Energy predecessor Vepco, championed the cause of deregulating electricity markets. He proposed breaking the electricity industry into separate components: generation, transmission, and retail distribution. Only retail electric lines, he suggested, were a “natural” monopoly. Berry’s vision, which was never fully executed in Virginia, bore strong similarities…
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Is the Goal Cutting CO2 or Imposing a Tax?
While it would have been a popular step with his political base, and one he was expected to take, Governor Ralph Northam may have been smart to pass on seeking to veto state budget language preventing Virginia membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
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Bacon Bits: Restored Licenses; Dominion’s Millstone Plant; RGGI
Wait. How many suspended licenses? Today’s Virginia Mercury has one of those stories that raises more questions than it answers, this one about the suspended driving license issue. My warning that there would be massive lines at DMV were groundless because, hey, these people still have their actual licenses. DMV never got them back or…
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Dominion Projects Tied To Facebook Approved
Ratepayers of Dominion Energy Virginia will start in June to pay for construction and operation of two solar energy facilities in Surry County intended to meet Facebook’s renewable energy goals. The State Corporation Commission decided one issue created by the case in favor of consumers but punted on another that pit one group of customers…
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Is Winter Coming For Virginia Pipeline Projects?
The building season is here, but for developers of Virginia’s two hotly-contested natural gas pipelines, activity is back in the government agencies and courthouses. The construction sites remain largely silent, delays running up the ultimate cost of the projects, including the cost of failure. Here is my (probably flawed) attempt at a status report. And…
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Another Double Dip? That’s One Issue With Dominion’s Proposed Market-Based Rate
Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed market-based pricing structure for large industrial customers has been criticized as a way for the utility to double collect, harking back to a key issue during the 2018 legislative push for its Grid Transformation and Security Act.
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Tim Kaine and Mark Warner both embarrass Virginia with relief legislation vote
Midwest apocalypse. As of March 30 satellite data shows that flooding caused at least one million acres of Midwest farmland to be covered in water for at least seven days in March. One million acres is 1,562 square miles. Up to a million calves may have died in Nebraska alone. This is a disaster of…
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Virginia’s “Secret” Medical Marijuana Program
The doctor who should be governor. State Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant is a Republican from Henrico County. She is also a practicing physician. In this year’s General Assembly session she put forth SB1557 which expanded last year’s so-called “Let Doctor’s Decide” legislation (HB1251). What’s new? The 2018 legislation (HB1251) authorized licensed medical providers to prescribe CBD and…
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DEQ Pushes Back on RGGI Costs; Meeting Set
Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board will meet April 19 to consider the next regulatory step to limit CO2 emissions from Virginia electricity plants through membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The agenda packet for the meeting, on-line here, contains more than 330 pages on the complicated issue, probably the best point counterpoint discussion on…
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Retailers Still Push To Escape Dominion Monopoly
The large retail establishments seeking to aggregate their electricity demand and take their business away from Dominion Energy Virginia have not been dissuaded by a February ruling that went against them. One of the petitioners in that case is seeking reconsideration, and the petitioner in another major case has sharpened its argument that the State…
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A kWh Saved Costs Triple A kWh Used. You Pay.
Buying yourself a kilowatt hour of electricity costs about twelve cents. Persuading your next-door neighbor or the store at the corner to use less electricity is three times as expensive, costing about 35 cents per kilowatt hour.