“The priorities of the Company have not changed — to provide reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean power to its customers,” the utility wrote in its 2023 Integrated Resource Plan, a nonbinding 15- to 25-year roadmap required by state law every three years and based on forecasts from regional grid operator PJM Interconnection. “However, this year the long-term projected amount of power needed in the [Dominion] Zone materially increased.”
“Since 2019, the Company has connected 75 data centers with an eventual capacity of 3 GW,” Dominion wrote in the IRP, which was filed with the State Corporation Commission Monday. “These data centers will ramp up to this capacity over time, so the Company expects this growth to materialize over the next three to five years.”
While the IRP is considered a “long-term planning document” based on a snapshot of current circumstances, and officials caution rapidly changing energy markets can mean its projections can quickly become out-of-date, the plan offers one of the clearest indications of how the utility sees Virginia energy needs and expects to meet them.
In the 2023 IRP, Dominion is proposing to accommodate the rising demand through several possible plans that could include the construction of up to eight small modular nuclear reactors starting in 2034 and up to seven new gas plants while also keeping two coal-fired plants running.
As the name suggests, SMRs are smaller versions of nuclear reactors that can be manufactured off-site and built in locations that may not be feasible for larger nuclear plants. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been a vocal proponent of the technology, which is still under development.
The potential new gas combustion turbines would be used to help meet peak grid demands, said Dominion, which pointed to strains on the grid caused by a Christmas 2022 cold snap that produced the highest demand for electricity in the company’s history in Virginia. The addition of seven new plants would more than double the company’s existing gas fleet in Virginia.
In addition to the new projects, various scenarios propose keeping online the coal- and biomass-fueled Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center and the coal-fueled Clover Power Station, which the utility jointly owns with Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, until at least the late 2030s. Prior IRPs had projected Clover would close in the middle of this decade.
All of Dominion’s plans incorporate large but different amounts of solar, wind and battery storage technologies, including electric school bus batteries. Dominion is required by the Virginia Clean Economy Act to generate certain percentages of its electricity from these sources by certain years.
“This ‘all of the above’ approach ensures we can reliably serve our customers ‘around-the-clock,’ especially on the hottest and coldest days of the year,” said Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia in a news release. “Our plan balances the benefits of renewables with the reliability of ‘on-demand’ power so we can meet the growing needs of our customers.”
“Much more work remains to be done to guarantee Virginians reliable, affordable and clean electricity,” Youngkin said in a statement. “This commonsense recognition by Dominion is an important first step, and we will continue to work with all stakeholders to accelerate the deployment of critical infrastructure and new technologies such as advanced nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture, and battery storage, that maintain the integrity of Virginia’s grid and ensure the state controls its own generation destiny.”
House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert, R-15th, of Shenandoah, voiced similar sentiments, saying the IRP “reflects reality.”
“It has been evident that the demands of the Virginia Clean Economy Act are incompatible with reliable, abundant, affordable energy,” Gilbert said. “Without an ‘all of the above’ plan that includes additional nuclear and other renewables, delayed retirement of existing base load facilities and the construction of new, dispatchable facilities, the only alternative will be to import as much as 300 percent more electricity from out of state – likely from sources that are not carbon-free.”
But Democratic legislators and environmental groups took a different tone, arguing the plan is a diversion from proven, less costly renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind and battery storage.
“From my perspective, what they ought to be talking about is speeding up the next offshore wind project or figuring out ways to deploy more solar in potential areas instead of talking about gas peakers,” said Sen. Scott Surovell, D-36th, who represents parts of Fairfax and Prince William counties. “The SCC is going to have to balance whether investing in a gas turbine that is required to be retired by 2040 makes financial sense to ratepayers.”
“Everyone acknowledges we don’t know how to commercialize SMRs,” he said. “Never been done in the world.”
Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Nate Benforado, an advocate for renewables development, said the IRP is Dominion’s “attempt to get back into Youngkin’s good graces” following two months of debate over utility profits and the state’s regulatory system during the 2023 legislative session.
“I don’t think what’s there is the best path forward,” said Benforado. “It’s a shame.”
Benforado said the plan goes against state law requiring decarbonization by calling for new investments in fossil fuels.
“These are huge increases in emissions at a time when we know by law [they] are required to be zero,” Benforado said. “To me this goes the exact opposite direction in significantly reducing our emissions.”
Kim Jemaine, director at Advanced Energy United, a trade association that represents renewable energy technology manufacturers, expressed skepticism of Dominion’s reliability concerns.
“Reliability is at the forefront of the VCEA. It pairs investments in solar, wind, existing nuclear, energy efficiency effort and energy storage,” Jemaine said. “Dominion largely ignores these resources and instead the utility focuses on natural gas, despite major price volatility there and advanced nuclear which is not yet commercially viable.”