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Dominion Solicits Renewable Energy Proposals

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James A. Bacon
in

First it’s nukes, now it’s renewable fuels. The boys and girls at Dominion have been very busy this week. The Richmond-based power company has announced today that it is soliciting proposals for renewable energy projects as part of its commitment to meet goals established by Virginia and North Carolina.

Dominion has issued a Request for Proposals for projects that will generate electricity using wind, sunlight, falling water, sustainable biomass, waste, wave motion, tides or geothermal energy. The projects must be located in Virginia, North Carolina or elsewhere in the PJM Interconnection area, which would allow the electricity to be transported to Virginia and North Carolina, the company stated in a press release. Dominion is interested in project ownership interests or purchase of renewable energy credits.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine put in a plug for the power company: “I applaud Dominion for taking this step toward meeting the renewable energy goals we have set for Virginia. As we strive to meet the growing energy needs of the Commonwealth in a sustainable, environmentally responsible way, this kind of leadership from our private-sector partners is crucial.”

You have to give people at Dominion credit. They’re paying attention. This is what people want to hear.

Here’s my question: While it’s great that Dominion is soliciting ideas from the outside, what is it doing internally? Why doesn’t Dominion have its own renewable energy group (or does it)? Who’s better equipped to know what kind of energy it needs where to optimize its transmission and distribution system? … Or would the cynics just criticize the company for crowding out the competition?

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6 responses to “Dominion Solicits Renewable Energy Proposals”

  1. Spank That Donkey Avatar
    Spank That Donkey

    It is also a step towards distributed energy in wind, solar, etc. I would like to see them help all hotels and motels install microturbine systems for electricity and cogeneration of hot water.

    Even if large areas lose the grid, housing would still be available unless the natural gas suppy were interrupted to the microturbines…

    That means something really, really, ugly has happened, but that scenario is unlikely. We should introduce more redundancy into the grid, for disaster preparedness, and of course natural gas burns cleaner… and is hint, hint, abundant off the VA coast I hear…

  2. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    this makes me uncomfortable

    I don’t know all the ins and outs but on one level if potentially could be that Dominion only wants to do nukes and coal but they want to control the other technologies in ways that may actually squelch competition.

    This is really bold if you think about it.

    They are saying – that they, in essence, control the energy policy in Virginia. They call the shots.

    someone weigh in and set me straight if I’m on a wrong track.

  3. Spank That Donkey Avatar
    Spank That Donkey

    Google has a lot… as in Billions of dollars… and they announced yesterday that they are going to try and develop alternative energies that will be cheaper than coal…

    http://blog.google.org/2007/11/investing-in-cleaner-energy-revolution.html

    Unlike the politics of any state General Assembly, or Congress my guess is these guys are going to make the most viable option for alternative energy happen…

    It’s smart to say, oh yeah, I was thinking about diversifying myself.. just this week… as a matter of fact.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Larry I think this is more benign than you fear — who knows whether renewables is a policy fad or lasting paradigm shift. This gives Dominion some flexibility in managing that business risk. Also the developer has the reputational risk from the bat, bird and “scenic vista” lobbies.

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    There is no doubt in my mind that we will have more renewable power, and it will be cost effective.

    Just as soon as the less expensive sources get used up.

    Here is a question though, suppose we suddenly had 100% renewable energy, tomorrow. What would happen to the need to “conserve energy” to save the environment?

    Right now the Government is considering regulating the use of salt in prepared foods. It may take them years to decide what to do, and yet here is a change that costs almost nothing, and could save hundreds of lives – a week.

    We really need to rethink our priorities, and how we decide what our priorities are.

    RH

    RH

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I think Larry is right. Dominion is in a very good position to protect their interests and redeploy their assets on all sides.

    We can expect them to do exactly that.

    RH

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