Tag: Dominion
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Clash over Rate Freeze Shifts to Va. Supreme Court
Earlier this week, the Virginia Senate shut down a bid by Sen. Chap Peterson, D-Fairfax, to revoke the rate freeze on Dominion Virginia Power’s and Appalachian Power’s electricity rates. But the battle over electric rates is far from over. The contest now moves to the Virginia Supreme Court. Today is the deadline for foes to…
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Justification for Electricity Rate Freeze Melting?
Is it time to reverse the rate freeze on electricity rates in Virginia? If President-elect Donald Trump revokes the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, Sen. Chap Peterson, D-Fairfax, author of SB 1095, thinks it would be. Two years ago, no one knew what to make of the Clean Power Plan, an Environmental Protection Agency initiative…
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A Corporate Culture Emphasizing Electric Reliability
I normally don’t take notice of corporate awards and recognitions. That goes double for Dominion Virginia Power’s awards and recognitions, knowing that I will be accused of shilling for a sponsor of this blog. I make an exception this time because I want to address a point raised in the comments of a recent post,…
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Crunching the Numbers on Dominion Virginia Power
Dominion Virginia Power has just released a press release touting three numbers it wants the public to know: Customers have experienced on average a 10 percent improvement in electric power reliability since 2011. The company’s new Brunswick County Power Station will lower costs by $1.5 billion. Dominion has reduced the carbon-intensity rating of its generation…
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Clean Energy Stakeholders Agree on Solar Legislation
A working group that includes Dominion Virginia Power, Appalachian Power and an assortment of clean energy advocates has achieved consensus on pro-solar legislation to submit to the General Assembly. According to Jim Pierobon, writing for Southeast Energy News, the group worked through the summer and early fall guided by Mark Rubin, a mediator with the…
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Brunswick County Power Station Recognized
Dominion Virginia Power’s Brunswick County Power Station has received “Project of the Year” honors from Power Engineering magazine in recognition of its technological innovation, local impact, capacity, and logistical challenges and innovation. Commissioned in April 2016, the combined-cycle natural gas-fired electricity plant is expected to provide 9% of Dominion’s total energy requirements in its first…
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Dominion Tweaks Coal-Ash Dewatering Process
Dominion Virginia Power has temporarily shut down the $35 million water treatment facility at its Possum Point Power Station as it adjusts the process of cleaning water from its coal ash ponds, Levels of selenium, a chemical element that can be toxic at high levels, rose above a “trigger” point specified in agreement between Dominion and Prince…
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Dominion Breaks Ground on Greensville Plant
Construction has been underway at Dominion Virginia Power’s $1.3 billion Greensville County Power Station for several months now, but the company held its official ground-breaking ceremony yesterday. The event gave Dominion an opportunity to extol the virtues of the plant to its corporate family and friends. Among the key points noted by Robert Zullo with the…
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How Fast Is Electricity Usage Growing — a Multibillion Dollar Question
by James A. Bacon Last week Dominion Virginia Power issued a press release highlighting the fact that persistent hot, humid weather in July, August and September had set a three-month electricity-usage record for its service territory and the electric cooperatives that are part of its system. Over those three months customers used 28.2 million megawatt hours of…
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What’s the Hold-up on the Surry-Skiffes Permit?
by James A. Bacon In the late summer of 2015, Dominion Virginia Power issued grave warnings that residents and businesses of the Williamsburg-Newport News area could face electricity blackouts if the power company didn’t quickly receive permits to build the proposed 500 kV Surry-Skiffes Creek transmission line. When Dominion shuts down its aging, coal-fired units…
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Storm Surge
by James A. Bacon Jeffrey A. Hutchinson, manager of Dominion Virginia Power’s central operations center, first took note of Hurricane Matthew a month ago when it was a storm forming off Africa. Keeping tabs through the company’s two meteorologists and subscription weather services, he tracked its progress across the Atlantic Ocean. He felt relieved when the…
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More Monitoring of Possum Point Groundwater
The Department of Environmental Quality has told Dominion Virginia Power to add nine new monitoring wells at its Possum Point Power Station and submit samples on a bi-weekly basis to get a better read on whether groundwater from its coal ash pits is contaminating neighbors’ drinking water. Tests in private wells near the power station have…
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The Economics of Coal Ash Disposal
To cap coal ash pits in existing locations or to haul it off to landfills is the multibillion dollar question facing the electric utility industry. by James A. Bacon The debate over coal ash hasn’t gone away — it’s just morphed. For much of the year, public attention focused on how to de-water millions of tons of coal-combustion residue…
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Can Industrial Energy Efficiency Help Virginia Meet Its Clean Power Plan Goals?
by James A. Bacon By investing more aggressively in industrial efficiency, Virginia manufacturers could reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 2.6 million tons annually by 2030 while saving themselves a cumulative $4.1 billion. That’s the conclusion of a new study, “State Ranking of Potential Carbon Dioxide Emission Reductions through Industrial Energy Efficiency,” published earlier this month by the…
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Regulators Grant Water Permit for Chesterfield Power Station
by James A. Bacon The State Water Control Board approved today the reissue of a waste-water permit at the Chesterfield Power Station, the largest fossil-fueled power plant in Dominion Virginia Power’s generating fleet. Among other features, the permit covers the de-watering of coal ash as the utility moves toward a long-term disposal of the potentially…