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In October 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office awarded Dominion Energy a grant of $33.7 million to help make the state’s electrical grid more efficient. The funds, provided through the department’s $3.5 billion Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program, will support increasing battery storage capacity in rural communities and facilitating more effective integration of renewable energy sources into the grid, among other upgrades.

Such changes to the grid are a key piece of a large-scale transformation taking place around the country and with particular speed and urgency in Virginia that encompasses both the amount of energy that utilities must produce and how they must produce it.

A Richmond-based Fortune 500 company with 2.7 million customers in Virginia, Dominion is the state’s largest electrical utility, and it’s at the forefront of an effort to ensure that the commonwealth can keep up with fast-growing energy demand from its booming data center industry while also meeting the state government’s ambitious mandate that the utility reach zero carbon emissions within the next 20 years.

Three simultaneous transitions are driving the transformational change in energy production taking place in Virginia and across the country: digitization, electrification and renewable, carbon-free energy.

Digitization is a sweeping societal change that’s well underway, with the digital economy increasingly integrated into consumers’ daily lives. The data storage, cloud computing and artificial intelligence needs driving this transition are power-intensive. Dominion predicts that the data center industry in the state will demand 13 gigawatts of electricity by 2038, a massive jump from the 2.8 gigawatts it used in 2023.

Residential and commercial electrification is also adding to increasing demands. While electricity has been the primary source of energy for homes and businesses for the last century, many consumers also rely on natural gas for some energy needs. But public policy, cost and other factors have been pushing residential and commercial consumers to switch from natural gas appliances to electric. A similar shift is underway in the transportation sector with the increasing popularity of electric vehicles.

Digitization and electrification together account for a large and continuing increase in demand for power in Virginia. Dominion’s latest forecasts show that demand is going to grow by more than 5% per year for the next 15 years in the company’s service territory, an unprecedented increase against a backdrop of 1% per year historical growth. This means that power customers in Virginia are likely to be consuming twice as much electricity 15 years from now as they are today.

Data centers are the largest contributing factor to that growth, with power demand in this sector having doubled in the last five years and expected to at least quadruple over the next 15 years. A typical 100-megawatt data center today can consume as much power as 25,000 homes, and power demand from data centers in Dominion’s service territory is currently equivalent to about 750,000 homes. In 15 years, data centers in Virginia are likely to be consuming as much power as 3 million or more homes.

Dominion and other utilities need to vastly increase their energy generation and distribution capacity to meet this accelerating demand — while they are also being tasked with greening their operations to address the realities of a changing climate.

The Virginia Clean Economy Act, passed by a Democrat-majority General Assembly in 2020, requires Virginia’s utilities to move toward green energy. Under the act, Dominion is mandated to generate electricity in Virginia from 100% renewable sources by 2045. In 2020, Dominion, which is committed to reaching the 2045 goal in Virginia, also announced a goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions across all its operations nationwide by 2050.

“That’s a monumental, once-in-a-multiple-generation transition that’s occurring,” says Aaron Ruby, Dominion’s director of Virginia and offshore wind media. “What we’re undertaking across the U.S. in terms of the clean energy transition is no less revolutionary than the industrial revolution itself.”

Ruby emphasizes that it took about a century to build the nation’s current power grid, which consists of the power plants, cables, substations and other infrastructure that produce and reliably deliver electricity to millions of Americans around the clock. Greening the electrical sector, he says, means “basically rebuilding all of that” over the next two or three decades.

“It’s not going to occur overnight,” says Ruby. “It’ll take multiple generations to accomplish. It’ll take tens of billions of investment in Virginia alone.”

Doing so requires building large, capital-intensive infrastructure projects such as offshore wind farms, as well as performing extensive work to increase the electrical grid’s resilience.

Dominion lays out annual predictions on changes in energy demand and the utility’s plans to meet that demand, including the infrastructure projects needed to do so, in its 15- to 25-year integrated resource plans (IRP). Each year, Dominion is required under law to provide an updated IRP to the state’s utility regulator, the Virginia State Corporation Commission. Dominion’s most recent plan, submitted in 2023, lays out five build scenarios featuring various mixes of energy generation to meet surging demand and push toward the zero-carbon goal. The next plan update is due in October.

Going carbon-free

The task of simultaneously increasing electricity generation and transitioning to clean sources of energy is an unprecedented challenge for Dominion. But the company plans to address both priorities with the same investments and improvements.

About 90% of the new power generation Dominion is adding to the grid in Virginia will be carbon-free in coming years, delivered by a mix of offshore wind and solar power, battery storage and, potentially, small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

“We’re all in on renewables,” notes Ruby.

Dominion is currently building the nation’s largest offshore wind project off the coast of Virginia Beach, which is expected to come online in 2026. The $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project will produce 2,600 megawatts of power, enough zero-carbon electricity to power more than 600,000 homes. The wind farm will be the single highest producing “power plant” in Dominion’s network.

In August, Dominion won provisional rights to a 176,505-acre lease adjacent to the CVOW site, where it could develop another 2.1 to 4 gigawatts of offshore power generation. Additionally, Dominion in July acquired a 40,000-acre offshore wind lease off North Carolina’s Outer Banks where it plans to develop CVOW-South, an offshore wind farm expected to generate 800 megawatts.

Dominion also has the largest fleet of solar power plants in the country, which is growing rapidly, and is expanding battery storage across Virginia. The company is pioneering emerging technologies that will allow for longer-duration battery storage for renewable energy, potentially up to 100 hours.

It is also moving forward on developing nuclear energy options. On July 10, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill aimed at accelerating the path to deploying SMRs. A couple days later, Dominion issued a request for proposals from vendors to help it develop the first SMR in Virginia by the mid-2030s, to be situated at its North Anna nuclear power plant site. SMRs could play a vitally important role in the clean energy mix in the next couple of decades, but that will take more time and investment.

“We continue to make the necessary investments to provide the reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy that powers our customers every day, and we are 100% focused on execution,” Dominion Chair, President and CEO Bob Blue told investors on a first quarter earnings call in May. “We know we must deliver, and we will.”

Delivering for customers includes ensuring that electricity is consistently reliable, which can be a challenge when relying increasingly on renewable energy sources. Offshore wind installations only produce power 40% to 50% of the time, and solar panels only produce power 20% to 25% of the time. Current battery storage technology is limited to about six hours of storage. The first SMR won’t be in operation for at least a decade.

“As we face unprecedented growth in power demand, renewables alone will not be able to reliably serve that growth,” says Ruby. “The reason is simple: The practical limitations of renewable tech. That’s why our approach in the long-term plan is an all-of-the-above approach that includes energy sources that are increasingly clean but always reliable.”

The “all-of-the-above” phrase is a nod to the fact that Dominion is continuing to rely in part on natural gas during its transition to renewables. Youngkin’s 2022 energy plan, which he dubbed his All-American, All-of-the-Above Energy Plan, explicitly calls for the continued use of natural gas as the state moves to more green energy provision.

Notably, natural gas is “dispatchable,” which means it can quickly produce power for the grid. A natural gas plant can ramp up to significant production within 10 or 20 minutes, a critically important ability when viewed in context of renewables’ potential inconsistency.

As a result, Dominion has been calling for adding more natural gas generation to its operations in Virginia over the next 15 years. Dominion’s proposed Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC), a 1,000-megawatt natural gas plant that has received some community pushback from Chesterfield County residents over environmental concerns, will be critically important to keeping customers’ power on when renewables aren’t producing, Ruby says, particularly on the hottest and coldest days of the year. Reducing dependency on natural gas, he says, will require significant advances in clean energy technology in coming years.

Dominion Energy is installing the monopile foundations for its $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach. Photo by Mark Rhodes

Transforming the grid

Along with boosting power generation and shifting to renewable energy sources, Dominion must also ensure that the state’s distribution infrastructure can handle these changes. In particular, integrating more renewables requires grid modernization, as renewable sources like wind and solar are more decentralized and intermittent than traditional power plants.

“If our customers are going to be using twice as much electricity over 15 years, we need to be able to transport and deliver twice as much through the grid over the next 15 years,” says Ruby. “That requires a lot of investment in transmission infrastructure to modernize the grid.”

To do so, Dominion is implementing several grid enhancing technologies (GETs), cost-effective technical upgrades that can add grid capacity and optimize the flow of power to improve performance and resiliency. In April, Youngkin signed a bill requiring Dominion to consider grid-enhancing technologies when putting together its annual IRPs.

“Grid modernization is imperative to a reliable and resilient energy grid across the commonwealth,” says Glenn Davis, director of the Virginia Department of Energy. “This administration has identified challenges as we look forward related to our transmission infrastructure and has identified opportunities to harden the grid in various regions.”

To accommodate more power flowing through the grid as demand increases, Dominion is building new stretches of electric lines, as well as “reconductoring” — replacing transmission wires with new ones that can handle greater flow. In many cases, replacing wires allows advanced conductors to handle 50% more electricity on the same tower.

Dominion’s Analytics and Control for Driving Capital (ACDC) project, which is financed by the $33.7 million GRIP award and a matching $33.7 million investment from Dominion, is implementing a particular set of GETs to optimize grid operations and efficiency.  These technologies include:

• dynamic line rating (DLR), which determines the maximum thermal capacity of electric lines in given weather conditions to maximize transmission efficiency;

• a grid forming inverter (GFI), a pilot technology that increases stability and functionality of renewables integrated into the power grid;

• dynamic performance monitoring (DPM), which uses high-tech sensors to track and collect frequency data to measure the impacts of components added to the grid and inform better operational decision-making;

• and grid edge visibility (GEV), which increases the visibility and operability of the distribution grid to help Dominion better plan for intermittent energy production from renewables.

To handle the increase in energy, the grid will also need new substations, which transform high-voltage electricity on transmission lines to lower voltages that can traverse distribution lines to reach homes and businesses. Dominion is also adding many new substations, including a new one for every new data center.

“Governor Youngkin’s All-American, All-Of-The-Above Energy Plan calls for utilizing innovative methods to increase the efficiency of our existing energy infrastructure,” says Skip Estes, Youngkin’s senior policy adviser. “Grid enhancing technologies are a tool, but to serve its booming economy, Virginia must also focus on building more transmission infrastructure.”

According to Davis, the biggest challenge facing transmission infrastructure growth is a four-year backlog on transmission components in the supply chain, “so that is one of the challenges we’re looking to address: how we incent additional manufacturing of transmission components,” he says. “The governor is looking at that, as well as a number of other items as part of the process for his updated all-of-the-above energy plan for Virginia.”

The fast-changing nature of energy technology is an important factor in Virginia’s and Dominion’s efforts to increase energy production, bring in renewable sources and modernize the grid. Dominion’s IRPs must be updated every year because each is intended to serve as a snapshot in time, with explicit acknowledgement that conditions and/or technology may — and likely will — change profoundly in the months after each is published.

Ruby emphasizes that whatever plans Dominion is making now may be laughably outdated in a matter of decades.

“What will the technology mix look like in 25 years?” he asks. “Look in the rearview mirror: 25 years ago, cell phones didn’t exist, [and] the internet barely existed as we know it. Our entire digital economy didn’t exist as it is today. That shows how much can change over a 25-year period.”

Regardless of what the future brings, Ruby says, Dominion’s commitment to meeting demand while reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 “is unwavering.”  

Clarke County limits solar development

Clarke County prioritizes agriculture. That’s what drives most of its policy-making as the county navigates the complexities of renewable energy development while preserving its farmland, explains County Administrator Chris Boies.

In January, the county’s Board of Supervisors approved new regulations for utility-scale solar projects.

Boies says the ordinance has always required solar plants to be situated near electrical substations, leveraging the county’s existing infrastructure. But the new amendments have explicitly named two substations, ensuring solar projects remain contiguous and within a 1-mile radius of those facilities.

“We also still allow and encourage household-sized solar for individual homes and farms,” he says. “We are not against solar; we are against losing agricultural land.”

With approximately 25% of the county under permanent conservation easements, maintaining open spaces and supporting farming communities are priorities reflected in the county’s comprehensive plan.

Board of Supervisors Chairman David Weiss, a local farmer, is a big supporter of the amended regulations. “This is not an anti-solar decision; it’s a land-use issue,” he says. “And we feel that, based on our size and our energy consumption and the small county that we are, we have done our share.”

One 20-megawatt solar project by Hecate Energy has already been approved, with the first of its two phases built out. A second proposal comes from Horus Virginia, which has requested to build a 50-megawatt solar farm.

While the project is pending, it’s been filed under the former regulations, ensuring it’s grandfathered in, says Ty Lawson, a land-use lawyer representing Horus Virginia.

If the project is approved, the county will be maxed out on solar farms, Boies says.

“It requires a fair amount of land, and as you go closer to urban centers, it’s harder to find the hundreds of acres of contiguous land to put the panels on,” Lawson says. “So, generally you do see commercial solar fields in places that are not densely occupied.”

Horus Virginia has proposed a site spanning over 400 acres that ensures minimal visibility from surrounding properties and public roads, Lawson says.

The project is a long-term investment, with solar panels typically having a lifespan of around 30 years, he adds.

At its Feb. 2 meeting, the county’s Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the solar farm development. During its Feb. 20 meeting, the Board of Supervisors authorized a public hearing that was set for March 19.  

Dominion pitches new solar projects to SCC

Dominion Energy is pitching the State Corporation Commission on several solar projects that could generate enough carbon-free electricity to power nearly 200,000 homes.

The projects, presented in the Fortune 500 utility’s fourth annual clean energy filing with the state, include six solar projects totaling 337 megawatts and 13 power purchase agreements totaling 435 megawatts with independent solar projects that were picked through competitive solicitation, Dominion said in a news release Wednesday.

“These projects support our ongoing efforts to deliver reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy to our customers,” Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia, said in a statement. “They will also bring jobs and economic benefits to communities across the commonwealth.”

If approved, the company will surpass 4,600 megawatts of solar across the state, enough to power more than 1.1 million homes at peak output.

Construction of the projects would be complete between 2024 and 2026 and would support more than 1,600 jobs while generating more than $570 million in economic benefits across Virginia, Dominion said. Projects include:

  • Alberta Solar, 3 megawatts, Brunswick County;
  • Beldale Solar, 57 megawatts, Powhatan County;
  • Blue Ridge Solar, 95 megawatts, Pittsylvania County;
  • Bookers Mill Solar, 127 megawatts, Richmond County;
  • Michaux Solar, 50 megawatts, Henry and Pittsylvania counties;
  • Peppertown Solar, 5 megawatts, Hanover County.

Dominion said the costs of the projects would add an estimated $1.54 to the average residential customer’s monthly bill.

The company’s latest proposal to the state follows news in late September that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had completed its environmental assessment of Dominion’s proposed $9.8 billion, 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, planned for construction 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. The nearly 700-page report was published Sept. 29 in the Federal Register, which kicked off a minimum 30-day waiting period before the BOEM could issue its final decision on whether to approve the project. The SCC approved the project in August 2022.

Dominion Energy Virginia is also asking the state to allow it to test a $70 million battery storage pilot facility that it says could lengthen the time its batteries can electrify the grid from an average of four hours to longer than four days.

Richmond-based electricity and natural gas provider Dominion Energy has about 7 million customers in 15 states. Its Virginia division has about 2.7 million customers in Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.

Dominion, Dulles solar project to power 37,000 Va. homes

A massive solar project that will soon begin to take shape at Washington Dulles International Airport will not only have the ability to power 37,000 Virginia homes, but will also send a message to travelers about the power of clean energy, officials said Tuesday during a ceremonial groundbreaking for the 835-acre Dulles Solar and Storage project.

A partnership between Richmond-based Fortune 500 utility Dominion Energy and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, the project is expected to begin construction later this year, aiming for completion in late 2026.

“Millions of travelers flying in and out of Dulles every year will see this powerful symbol of the clean energy transition,” said Dominion Energy President, Chair and CEO Bob Blue, who gathered with state, federal and local officials Tuesday in a parking lot at the airport to throw a ceremonial shovel of dirt to mark the public groundbreaking.

Several years in the making, the Dulles Solar and Storage project is expected to generate 100 megawatts of solar energy and will store up to 50 megawatts of power. According to Dominion, it will be the largest renewable energy project developed at a U.S. airport. Instead of paying an annual lease, Dominion will develop two solar carports, one megawatt in capacity each, to help power airport facilities; it will also provide 18 electric transit buses, 50 electric fleet vehicles and electric vehicle charging stations for Dulles operations.

The project comes in addition to others that Dominion has in the pipeline, including a 2.6-gigawatt, $9.8 billion wind farm 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast as well as supporting development of small nuclear reactors as the company reaches toward a state mandate to produce all of its power for Virginia customers from renewable sources by 2045. During the last decade, Dominion has built the second largest utility solar fleet in the country, with solar energy providing power for 400,000 of the company’s customers and businesses, Blue said, adding that “over the next decade, projects like this one will develop enough solar for 2 million more.”

MWAA President and CEO Jack Potter noted that the 200,000-panel solar farm that will cover the 835 acres southwest of the Dulles airport will be similar in size to Arlington County’s 875-acre Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Reagan, which officials have said is the busiest airport in the country, has been the source of legislative wrangling as some members of Congress sought to add more long-haul flights there. The move has been opposed by several Virginia and Maryland lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, who took the opportunity Tuesday during remarks to also take a swipe at that idea. About 40% of flights at Reagan are delayed for about an average of 60 minutes, he said, adding “Congress shouldn’t be micromanaging the region’s airports” and noting the billions of dollars that have been invested in extending Metro’s Silver Line, including a stop at Dulles that opened in November, a move expected to drive billions of dollars in investment in Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

“You think about adding more flights there for certain members of Congress’ individual convenience, you turn a challenge for the traveling public for the neighborhoods around National from a challenge to a disaster,” Warner said.

The Dulles project, which is expected to generate 300 construction jobs and $200 million in economic activity for the state, has also faced pushback from environmental groups, including the Piedmont Environmental Council, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. In a 2021 letter, the groups said they support solar at the Dulles site but argued for an alternative option that included placing solar panels on already developed environments, including above airport rooftops, parking garages and airport parking areas.

It also comes as some Virginia counties have faced resistance to solar development, including Fauquier County, which earlier this month denied a proposed the proposed Sowego Solar farm. In May, Energix Renewables withdrew plans to build a solar farm in Franklin County after residents complained a proposed 20 megawatt farm on 92 acres would impact property values, amid other concerns. In Halifax County, residents have asked elected officials to place limits on solar developments.

But Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall on Tuesday applauded Dominion’s project, citing climate change and devastating wildfires that ripped through Maui as well as Tropical Storm Hilary, the first storm to hit Southern California in 84 years.

“For Dominion Energy to step up and do solar, to do wind, to do small nuclear reactors, to partner with Dulles airport speaks to the fact that everybody now knows that we are not making land-use decisions for today,” Randall said. “We’re making these decisions for our children, for our children’s children and even for their children. We have no options, but to have sustainable energy in place right now.”

Balance of power

Chris Rawlings was a mechanic who wanted to be a pilot.

He left the Marine Corps in 2008 after deploying twice to Iraq, where he supervised an aircraft maintenance team, going on to perform similar duties as a civilian contractor in a hangar at Fort Eustis. But his plan was to get back into the service.

“My dream was always to fly fighter jets for the Marine Corps,” he says, but something unexpected happened, and Rawlings instead found his next career.

His boss at the hangar asked him to study ways to improve efficiency, and as Rawlings poked around, he noticed the “massive amount” of money the place was wasting from energy losses with temperature-controlled air blowing out hangar doors or leaking through hoses. Going green could save the operation a lot of money, he realized, and the idea stuck with him.

In 2014, Rawlings launched Richmond-based Bowerbird Energy LLC, which focuses on helping businesses cut their power costs. Nine years later, Bowerbird is “a multimillion-dollar business,” with more than 350 clients nationwide, Rawlings says. The company designs LED lighting arrays and HVAC systems, and it creates feasibility studies and energy plans for businesses interested in reducing their carbon footprints or switching to renewable energy.

“There’s so much opportunity in the energy industry,” says Chris Rawlings, founder and chief energy officer of Richmond-based Bowerbird Energy. Photo by Caroline Martin
“There’s so much opportunity in the energy industry,” says Chris Rawlings, founder and chief energy officer of Richmond-based Bowerbird Energy. Photo by Caroline Martin

“There’s so much opportunity in the energy industry,” Rawlings says.

As Virginia moves to transform its electric grid to carbon-free, renewable energy in the face of climate change, it’s creating enormous opportunities for businesses big and small.

“When you’re transforming the grid, you’re making big changes. It takes a lot of work to get that done and you need qualified people to do that work,” says Rawlings, who anticipates that grid transformation will likely result in contracts and job creation for Bowerbird and other small businesses like his.

The renewable energy market was an $881.7 billion global industry in 2020, according to Portland, Oregon-based Allied Market Research, which projects it will grow to $1.98 trillion by 2030 as governments and industries push to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions in the face of climate change.

Here in Virginia, in 2020, the then-Democratic-majority Virginia General Assembly passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), requiring all electricity in Virginia to be produced from carbon-free power sources no later than 2050.

Political leaders, environmental activists, lobbyists and energy executives say the transition will be challenging. In addition to creating carbon-free clean energy, grid transformation can also be expected to generate controversies, technical difficulties and tradeoffs.

Bob McNab, economics department chair at Old Dominion University and director of ODU’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy, says the renewable energy economy is projected to surge ahead of fossil fuels over the next 30 years.

What’s happening now, he adds, resembles earlier industrial revolutions in computers and cars that brought economic booms. And it poses a stark challenge: “Will Virginia lead or will Virginia follow?”

For environmental activists like Dan Crawford, chair of the Roanoke group of the Sierra Club, the transition to renewable energy is more than a business or government matter, though — it’s an existential crisis for humanity, as scientists warn that the world is on the precipice of a series of catastrophic tipping points.

“Climate change is not going to happen. It’s happening,” Crawford says, adding that switching to renewables might help save us from some terrible impacts, the worst of which “would be that no humans survive.”

Ambitious targets

Under the VCEA, Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc., the Fortune 500 utility that serves 64.4% of Virginia, is mandated to produce all of its power for its customers in the state from renewable energy sources by 2045. Columbus, Ohio-headquartered Appalachian Power Co., which serves about 14% of the commonwealth, must meet the same target by 2050.

“When your lights are off, that’s the only thing that matters,” says Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine of the importance of ensuring the reliability of Virginia’s power grid during and after the state-mandated transition to carbon-free renewable energy sources. Photo courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.
“When your lights are off, that’s the only thing that matters,” says Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine of the importance of ensuring the reliability of Virginia’s power grid during and after the state-mandated transition to carbon-free renewable energy sources. Photo courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.

The law also requires Appalachian to increase its energy storage capacity by 400 megawatts and Dominion to boost its capacity by 2,700 megawatts, pending approval by the State Corporation Commission — all by 2035.

Finally, the General Assembly has required Dominion to have offshore wind projects capable of producing 5.2 gigawatts by 2032.

Toward this end, Dominion is developing its $9.8 billion offshore wind farm. Located 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, when finished in 2026, it is expected to provide power for up to 660,000 customers.

The VCEA also grandfathers in existing nuclear power plants, allowing nuclear energy to be in the carbon-free mix with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. (However, somewhat contradictorily, the VCEA excludes nuclear energy from its definition of renewable energy sources.)

The size and scope of Virginia’s energy grid and the commonwealth’s growing power needs are impressive and make grid transformation appear to be a daunting task.

State utilities generated 103.1 terawatt-hours of power in 2020, according to the Virginia Department of Energy. (One terawatt-hour is enough to light 1 million homes for a year.) And Virginia’s electricity demands are predicted to grow by more than 78% by 2050, according to a 2021 report from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Virginia’s status as the state with the world’s largest concentration of power-hungry data centers as well as mass adoption of electric vehicles are expected to be key drivers of that demand, the report concluded.

Yet, so far, Dominion and Appalachian have a long way to go to meet the carbon-free mandate.

Last year, just 5% of energy produced by Dominion’s Virginia Power came from renewables, up slightly from 4% in 2020. Natural gas accounted for 41% and nuclear energy was responsible for 43% of electricity generated by Dominion. Coal accounted for 11%. (Natural gas and coal emit greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change.)

As for Appalachian, across all its service areas in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee, 16.6% of its power comes from hydroelectric, wind and solar sources, while 63.8% is generated by coal and 19.6% comes from natural gas when operating at full capacity. The company estimates that about 8% of energy for its Virginia customers comes from its own or contracted renewable energy sources.

Dominion and Appalachian executives say they’re optimistic they will hit the 2045 and 2050 targets set by the VCEA, while cautioning that fluctuations in power produced from renewables make grid reliability a challenge as the use of renewables expands.

Cliona Mary Robb, an energy law attorney at Richmond-based Thompson McMullan PC law firm and chair of the Virginia Renewable Energy Alliance, an industry group supporting renewable energy awareness, says the two utilities could meet VCEA deadlines under the current framework “if they are absolutely forced to,” but she notes that the state’s electric utility regulatory laws are “constantly changing,” and she doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon. 

Appalachian President and Chief Operating Officer Aaron Walker, meanwhile, says he wants to shift his utility’s Virginia operations to carbon-free renewables “as fast as we can — as long as we’re protecting the overall reliability, security and affordability of the grid.”

Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine is even more blunt: “When your lights are off, that’s the only thing that matters.”

Dominion’s offshore wind farm turbines will tower 800 feet above the water — almost 300 feet taller than the state’s tallest building, the 508-foot Westin Virginia Beach Town Center. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Dominion’s offshore wind farm turbines will tower 800 feet above the water — almost 300 feet taller than the state’s tallest building, the 508-foot Westin Virginia Beach Town Center. Photo by Mark Rhodes

Prevailing winds

Regardless of caveats, Dominion and Appalachian have taken big steps since 2020 to launch renewables projects, with promises that the transformation will create thousands of new jobs.

In addition to its offshore wind project, Dominion has filed proposals with state officials for at least 23 solar and energy storage projects totaling 800 megawatts, enough to power more than 200,000 homes, with SCC approval anticipated in mid-April. And last year, Appalachian Power filed a plan to acquire or contract for solar power projects totaling 294 megawatts and wind power projects totaling 204 megawatts over the next three years.

Appalachian notes, however, that four of their solar projects were dropped by developers due to development or cost issues. “While disappointing, we are still able to meet our Clean Economy Act [annual progress] requirements,” a spokesperson says. In mid-March, the utility was set to file an updated plan with the SCC that includes several new renewable energy projects.

Meanwhile, Dominion expects to propose between 800 and 1,000 megawatts of new solar and energy storage projects each year through 2035, as it has for the past three years under VCEA requirements.

Despite this forward momentum from the utilities, state Republicans have been pushing back on the Clean Energy Act, with Gov. Glenn Youngkin calling for the act to be reevaluated this year and every five years going forward. In October 2022, he issued his own alternative vision for the state’s power grid, a proposal endorsing an “all-of-the-above” mix of energy sources, including natural gas and nuclear power. This is in keeping with national GOP messaging that a hasty grid transition away from coal and natural gas could result in crashing grids and brownouts.

“We did incredible work in the 2020 [General Assembly] session in passing the Virginia Clean Economy Act. We have our target — it’s a great target — but what matters now is smart implementation,” says Andrew Grigsby, energy services director with Richmond-based nonprofit green energy consulting firm Viridiant. “The big solar farms and the big wind farms are astounding technology. … [It will be] a more complicated grid — no doubt about that — just as my iPhone is more complicated than my calculator from 1996. But any resistance to the clean energy transformation is kind of sad.”

Political pushback and technological challenges notwithstanding, U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, who, as a state senator, co-sponsored the VCEA, is optimistic Virginia will meet the 2045 and 2050 deadlines, saying that grid transformation is showing early promise.

“We’re already seeing progress with the rapid growth of solar in the state, offshore wind development and more robust energy efficiency,” McClellan says. “That has meant thousands of new jobs and more affordable energy for Virginians. … If anything, we might be able to hit our goals ahead of schedule.”

Perhaps the most significant advance in renewables is rising out of the waters off Virginia Beach’s coast where Dominion is working on its massive 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. The project will include 176 wind turbines, each towering 800 feet tall and capable of producing 14.7 megawatts.

“[It] will likely be the largest capital investment and single largest project in the history of Dominion Energy Virginia,” the State Corporation Commission concluded in a September 2022 order approving rate hikes associated with the project.

A 2020 study published by the Hampton Roads Alliance projected that operation and maintenance of the offshore wind farm will support more than 1,100 full-time jobs in Hampton Roads, paying $82 million in pay and benefits. That would generate an additional $210 million in economic impact and net $6 million in tax revenues for localities and $5 million for the state government. Additionally, the project is expected to create 900 construction jobs per year through 2026, providing $57 million in pay and benefits.

Further, ancillary offshore wind businesses could create an additional 5,200 full-time jobs, with $270 million in pay and benefits, according to the study, with an additional $740 million in economic output expected for each gigawatt of new offshore wind energy development the region services, according to the study.

Sunshine state

Utility-scale solar farms are popping up across Virginia, but the land-intensive projects have faced concerted opposition. A report by the Virginia Coastal Policy Center at William & Mary Law School indicates solar farms can be contentious in rural counties, partly because “the types of crops most likely to be displaced by utility-scale solar installations are corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat, which are also among the most-planted crops statewide.”

In late 2022, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin set a goal of building a small modular nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia within 10 years. Dominion Energy says that nuclear energy will be a crucial component in grid transformation. Photo by Earl Neikirk
In late 2022, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin set a goal of building a small modular nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia within 10 years. Dominion Energy says that nuclear energy will be a crucial component in grid transformation. Photo by Earl Neikirk

Localities that once embraced solar farms for unused land have started pushing back on some projects. In March 2022, Page County officials rejected a 571-acre solar project, and in December 2022, Rockingham County officials quashed two proposed solar farms. This January, Culpeper County denied a 1,900-acre solar project.

Last August, however, Charlotte County greenlit the state’s largest proposed solar farm to date, the $800 million to $1.6 billion Randolph Solar project. The 800-megawatt solar farm is expected to generate power for 200,000 homes. The developer, Reston-based SolUnesco, sold the project to Dominion after receiving approval.

But to reach this point, SolUnesco had to build consensus painstakingly, says founder and CEO Francis Hodsoll. The Randolph Solar project had to get buy-in from more than 150 landowners who collectively owned more than 1,000 parcels of land around the site.

Richmond-based attorney and lobbyist Greg Habeeb represents renewable development projects across Virginia in his role as president of Gentry Locke Consulting, an arm of Roanoke-based Gentry Locke Attorneys. The solar industry is getting better at working with local governments to create comprehensive agreements that cover potential impacts from solar farms, such as increased traffic, he says, and this helps build community support for the projects.

As the solar industry grows, Virginia will also require more utility-scale battery storage to make the grid reliable. Last year, Dominion began operating its largest battery energy storage pilot project at the Scott Solar + Storage facility in Powhatan County, which provides 12 megawatts of storage. The company has two smaller projects in New Kent and Hanover counties.

Fusion point

Advancing nuclear technology could also play a role in transforming the grid, and it’s an area in which there’s some bipartisan agreement. Youngkin has called for the country’s first small modular reactor (SMR) to be built in Southwest Virginia within 10 years, and McClellan has said that the development of new nuclear energy technology could help meet VCEA targets.

As planned by the U.S. Department of Energy, SMRs will vary in output from tens to hundreds of megawatts and have safety features that older, larger nuclear plants lack.

Dominion Energy, which has been considering several SMR reactor designs under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says nuclear power is a necessary part of its grid transformation plans. SMRs, the utility says, will present an “opportunity to provide an additional energy source which is available at all hours of the day to complement renewable energy.”

Dominion received approval in 2021 to extend the operational lifespan of its Surry nuclear power plant into the early 2050s; it has additionally sought to extend the life of its nuclear plant at North Anna to 2060, a matter still under review by the NRC.

A bill to establish an SMR pilot program failed in the General Assembly this session, but nuclear energy is still a hot topic among state energy stakeholders, says Robb with the Virginia Renewable Energy Alliance. With a membership that includes Dominion, Appalachian and several solar companies, the alliance sponsored a nuclear energy summit last September. “I think we’ve been sensing since last year that SMRs would play a role” in grid transformation, she explains.

Despite this year’s legislative setback for SMRs, Robb sees a place for nuclear power in the VCEA framework, although, she adds, the state’s energy policy will depend on which political party controls the legislature. All 140 General Assembly seats are on the ballot in November and many senior legislators are retiring, lending an uncertain outlook on the legislature’s balance of power.

“Coal is on its way out, but natural gas is still around,” Robb says. “I’ve often looked at natural gas as a bridge fuel” — between fossil fuels to renewable energy. “If SMRs work, their role [will be] replacing natural gas as a bridge fuel. I’m eagerly awaiting the results of the election.”  

Virginia Business Deputy Editor Kate Andrews contributed to this story.

Dominion proposes new solar, storage projects

Dominion Energy Virginia has proposed 23 new solar and energy storage projects that could power more than 200,000 Virginia homes at peak output.

The utility provider proposed the projects in its third annual clean energy filing with the Virginia State Corporation Commission on Friday. If approved, they will provide more than 800 megawatts of carbon-free electricity.

“These projects are another big step in delivering clean, affordable and reliable energy to our customers,” Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine said in a statement. “The clean energy transition is bringing jobs and economic opportunity to communities across Virginia, and it’s reducing fuel costs for our customers. That’s a win-win for our customers and the communities we serve.”

The proposal has 10 solar and energy storage projects that total nearly 500 megawatts. Dominion Energy Virginia would own and operate the projects.

Dominion Energy also proposed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with 13 solar and energy storage projects owned by independent developers, totaling more than 300 megawatts.

The proposed utility-scale solar projects are:

  • Bridleton Solar, Henrico County, acquired from Vega Renewables LLC
  • Cerulean Solar, Richmond County, to be acquired from Strata Clean Energy
  • Courthouse Solar, Charlotte County, acquired from NOVI Energy
  • King’s Creek Solar, York County, acquired from KDC Solar Virginia
  • Moon Corner Solar, Richmond County, developed by Dominion Energy Virginia
  • North Ridge Solar, Powhatan County, acquired from North Ridge Powhatan Solar LLC
  • Southern Virginia Solar, Pittsylvania County, acquired from Strata Clean Energy

The two distributed solar projects are:

  • Ivy Landfill Solar, Albemarle County, to be acquired from Community Power Group
  • Racefield Solar, James City County, acquired from Hexagon

The last project is a utility-scale energy storage project in Sussex County, Shands Storage, which Dominion acquired from East Point Energy.

Dominion estimates that construction on the projects would support nearly 4,800 jobs and generate more than $920 million in economic benefits across the state. The projects are subject to SCC approval and would then require local and state permits before construction started. If approved, Dominion expects the projects to be finished between 2023 and 2025. The projects would add about $0.38 to the average residential customer’s monthly bill, according to the filing.

Dominion Energy Inc. is also preparing for infrastructure work of its $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm project to begin in 2023. When complete, the project will have 176 turbines — each rising 800 feet above the ocean — 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. The company already has two pilot turbines in place.

Under the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act, Dominion must generate 100% of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. Dominion has also set a goal to reach net-zero carbon dioxide and methane emissions by 2050. Two of the projects — King’s Creek Solar and Ivy Solar — would be built on brownfield sites, which would help Dominion meet another of the act’s requirements: that at least 200 megawatts of solar be on brownfield sites.

Richmond-based electricity and natural gas provider Dominion Energy Inc. has about 7 million customers in 15 states. Its Virginia division has about 2.7 million customers in Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.

Charlotte County approves Va.’s largest solar farm

The largest solar project in Charlotte County — and Virginia, according to Dominion Energy Inc. — was approved by the county’s Board of Supervisors in July.

Reston-based utility-scale solar developer SolUnesco LLC received a conditional-use permit to build the $800 million to $1.6 billion Randolph Solar project in the southern part of the county. SolUnesco plans to sell the solar farm to Dominion, which would construct and operate the facility. It is expected to generate 800 megawatts — enough energy to power 200,000 homes. Dominion hopes to break ground in 2025 and bring the project online in 2027.

SolUnesco signed agreements with more than 150 landowners who collectively own more than 1,000 parcels that make up the site of the planned solar farm. About 4,500 of the 21,000 acres will be fenced in, surrounding the solar panels and equipment, which will sit on roughly 3,000 acres.

The project was a topic of debate in Charlotte for the past year. SolUnesco submitted the application for the project in June 2021 and spent the next year working with county officials to make the project more acceptable.

SolUnesco has received approval for seven other solar projects, all of which have been sold to energy companies, including Dominion, which acquired three of the properties. Two of the seven projects SolUnesco previously sold are already operating in Henry and Greensville counties, generating 20 megawatts and 60 megawatts, respectively. The five other solar farms are in various stages of development in Albemarle, Charlotte, Gloucester, Mecklenburg and Orange counties.

Over Randolph Solar’s 35-year lifespan, Charlotte County will receive about $314 million in payments and fees associated with the project, according to County Administrator Daniel Witt. It’s a sizeable amount for a county with a typical annual budget range of $26 million to $38 million, excluding public schools funding.

Randolph Solar won’t be the first solar project in Charlotte. Twitty’s Creek Solar, a 134-acre, 15-megawatt project, has been operating since December 2020. Developed by Holocene Clean Energy, Twitty’s Creek is owned by Alchemy Renewable Energy. Another Holocene project, the 105-acre, 5-megawatt Red House Solar, became operational this summer.

Charlotte has approved three more projects: Moody Creek Solar, a 1,653-acre, 150-megawatt project from SolUnesco; Courthouse Solar, a 1,318-acre, 167-megawatt solar farm; and Tall Pines Solar, a 240-megawatt, 2,086-acre project.

Accelerating the solar workforce

When local school systems decided to add solar arrays to their buildings, regional environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices and other members of the Solar Workgroup of Southwest Virginia counted it as a victory in their six-year efforts to develop a renewable energy cluster in Virginia’s coalfield counties.

In January, Southwest Virginia Community College and Mountain Empire Community College launched the Solar Workforce Accelerator program to provide the workers to install those arrays. The effort was funded via a $225,000 grant from the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority.

“Solar market development has been this chicken-and-egg problem in areas like Southwest Virginia,” says Autumn Long, project manager for the Appalachian Solar Finance Fund, Appalachian Voices’ program promoting solar projects.

“There’s an acknowledged need for workforce training and diversification and opportunities for the labor force,” she says, but employing a solar workforce requires “a sustained demand for solar development in the region.”

The accelerator program entails seven days of eight-hour trainings followed by an eight-week apprenticeship with Got Electric LLC, the company installing local schools’ solar panels. Students get $500 for completing the seven-day training. The apprenticeship pays $17 an hour, just above Lee County’s median household income.

Graduates are over halfway to solar array installer certifications, which they can complete later if they choose, and have nine credit hours toward associate energy technology degrees. They may also have jobs.

“They pretty much told us if we wanted a job, they could get something situated for us,” says Owen Swinney, one of 10 students in the first cohort. Swinney, who graduated from high school in June and finished the accelerator program in July, says he might accept the offer, if he can work around the energy technology courses he plans to take at Mountain Empire Community College this fall.

MECC plans another cohort next summer, says Matthew Rose, dean of industrial technology. Southwest Virginia Community College is developing its program. The two colleges plan to educate three cohorts each, with eight to 15 students per group, during the next three years.

The Solar Finance Fund plans to help maintain market demand by providing grants, much of it from the Appalachian Regional Commission, and technical assistance to local governments and nonprofits interested in solar power.

“This is a great opportunity, especially for the future of jobs in this area,” Swinney says. “I think solar’s going to be here for a while.”  

Frederick solar farms move forward

Frederick County is on the verge of seeing its first solar power farms. Three facilities are in the works, with another in the pipeline. That’s not to say Virginia’s northernmost county is exactly embracing fields of solar panels.

“Solar farms change the character of the land from rolling fields and animals grazing in pastures to a sea of glass panels and glare,” says J. Douglas McCarthy, vice chairman of the Frederick County Board of Supervisors.

The loss of valuable farmland is always concerning, he says. However, solar is less intrusive than housing, which changes the landscape forever. “Theoretically, the land used for solar panels could be reversed back to farmland,” he says.

Until recently, the county saw little economic value in solar farms, McCarthy says. However, solar companies now offset their developments’ impacts by offering incentives such as revenue sharing or upfront fees.

Boulder, Colorado-based Torch Clean Energy’s Bartonsville Energy Facility, which received a conditional-use permit in January, will make a one-time $750,000 payment to the county within 30 days of construction. It plans to build a 40- to 60-megawatt facility on a maximum of 430 acres.

Hollow Road Solar, a subsidiary of Leesburg-based Blue Ridge Energy Holdings LLC, requested a permit to build an 83-acre, 20-megawatt solar farm on a 326-acre parcel, but the county denied it in March 2021. However, this January, Hollow Road won approval on its second attempt by placing land (now primarily used for orchards) into a conservation easement and eliminating the transfer of development rights, essentially preventing residential development on the parcel, McCarthy says.

Also on the books is Stevensville, Maryland-based Foxglove Solar LLC’s 75-megawatt facility on 668 acres, for which the county approved a conditional-use permit in July 2020, as well as Pittsburgh-based Redbud Run Solar LLC’s approximately 263-acre facility, which the county approved in April.

Proposals take about three years to move through county and state approvals. 

“There is no definite timeline on any of them getting started or finished, but they are working to get plan approvals now,” says Karen Vacchio, spokesperson for Frederick County.

However, don’t expect to see many more solar farms in Frederick, McCarthy says. The “gold rush for solar” is largely over, since the prime areas where those operations can feed into transmission lines have been taken. 

Clean slate

On April 17, 2020, with a flourish of the pen, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam reshaped the future of energy production in the commonwealth.

Signing the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) into law last year, Northam declared that Virginia would become a leader in fighting climate change, and, indeed, no other Southern state has passed legislation as comprehensive. Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, the act’s co-patron, seconded the governor’s optimism. She adds that the VCEA will not only provide Virginia with clean energy but boost its economy, already projected to grow 8% in 2021, due in part to green energy jobs.

The VCEA requires stringent energy-efficiency standards that are projected to generate as much as $3,500 in savings for the average Virginia household over the next 30 years, according to a study by Advanced Energy Economy, an industry trade association. The act’s headline-grabber, though, is its mandate that all electricity consumed in the commonwealth must have zero carbon emissions and be generated from renewable energy sources by 2050.

It’s an ambitious goal, and the onus for achieving it falls largely on its two biggest electricity suppliers, Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc., with about 2.5 million in-state customers, and Ohio-based Appalachian Power, which services about 524,000 customers in Southwest Virginia, the Roanoke and New River valleys and the Lynchburg area. The two utilities are working purposefully to comply with the act, which gives Dominion until 2045 and Appalachian until 2050 to comply, with a provision allowing extensions if the utilities can’t provide reliable service from carbon-free sources by that point.

“You can either view this legislation as presenting a significant challenge or a great opportunity. We see it as the latter,” says Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia. “We are making great progress toward Virginia’s clean energy future and delivering significant benefits to our customers.”

Where things stand

The efforts to move Virginia to carbon-free energy production are happening as the impacts of climate change are becoming more apparent across the globe. The Pacific Northwest and Northern Europe saw record heat waves this summer, while several European nations experienced catastrophic flooding.

In August, the United Nations issued a report stating humans “unequivocally” caused climate change, warning that global warming is nearing a tipping point. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is at its greatest concentration in at least 2 million years, temperatures are at a 6,500-year high and sea levels are rising at the fastest rate in 3,000 years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called it a “code red for humanity,” adding, “The alarm bells are deafening. This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.”

Last year, under the Northam administration, Virginia passed the VCEA and became the first Southern state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a coalition of mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states working to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.

Close to 60% of the energy generated by Dominion in the commonwealth has been coming from sources that are neither carbon zero nor renewable, primarily natural gas and some coal. The Fortune 500 utility plans to close its coal-burning Chesterfield Power Station by May 2023, and it’s projected to close the coal-burning Clover Power Station in Halifax County in 2026. Dominion wants to keep its Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center — which burns coal, waste coal and biomass — operational until 2045.

Will Cleveland, a senior lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center, opposes that plan. He calls the center “a net loser” that should be shuttered much sooner. The energy center may be profitable to Dominion, he says, but the power company’s customers pay for it through site-specific surcharges on their electric bills known as rate adjustment clauses.

Most of the rest of Dominion’s energy supply in Virginia — about 40% — is generated from its four nuclear plants in North Anna and Surry. Nuclear energy is carbon zero, so it can remain in play under the VCEA. The Surry facilities are federally licensed to be operational until the early 2050s, and Dominion is seeking an extension to run the North Anna facilities until 2060. Despite having an option to build a third nuclear plant at North Anna, the utility has no current plans to do so, says Dominion’s manager of media relations, Rayhan Daudani.

Appalachian’s reliance on fossil fuels is heavier than Dominion’s. About 45% of its generating capacity comes from coal and another 28% from natural gas, with nuclear energy making up just 7% of its portfolio. (The remaining 20% comes from a mix of sources, including wind, hydroelectricity and pumped storage hydropower.)

Appalachian has no coal-burning plants in Virginia, but it does operate two in West Virginia: the 2,930-megawatt John Amos plant and the 1,330-megawatt Mountaineer plant. About half the power from these plants flows to Virginia customers. Under the VCEA, that eventually will have to stop unless Appalachian employs renewable energy certificates to offset that consumption. Against the objections of environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Appalachian is seeking to keep these coal-burning plants operating until 2040.

The Sierra Club says that keeping the plants open is not cost-effective for customers, but Appalachian President and Chief Operating Officer Chris Beam has a different take. “If forced to make big changes up front, that would drive [consumer] prices up,” he says.

Nevertheless, to conform to federal regulations regarding wastewater systems and ash removal, the plants require $250 million in upgrades, and Appalachian is asking the State Corporation Commission to approve a $2.50 monthly rate increase to pay for the improvements. If approved, the rate increase would take effect in October.

Both companies as well as the commonwealth have their work cut out to comply with the VCEA and all will, by necessity, be making historic investments in wind power, solar power and energy storage.

Dominion has erected two pilot wind turbines as part of its plan to build the nation’s largest offshore wind farm 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Dominion has erected two pilot wind turbines as part of its plan to build the nation’s largest offshore wind farm 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. Photo by Mark Rhodes

Where the wind blows

Making wind power into a dominant source of energy for Virginia won’t be a breeze. Already, opposition has put the brakes on building the state’s first proposed land-based wind farm.

The planned 14-turbine Rocky Forge Wind project in the mountains of Botetourt County is opposed by the Virginians for Responsible Energy, a citizens’ group that contends that the project would degrade the landscape and pose a fire hazard. A lawyer for the group recently pointed out to the county that Rocky Forge developer Apex Clean Energy had missed a deadline for a site approval plan. After some back and forth, the county then rejected Apex’s request for an extension, leaving the project becalmed.

The Sierra Club, however, “fiercely supports” Rocky Forge. Dan Crawford, chair of the club’s Roanoke group and of its Virginia onshore wind promotion, says, “If push comes to shove, and it goes to court, I’m confident the wind farm will happen.”

Rocky Forge is also part of the state government’s plan to meet its goal of obtaining at least 30% of the electricity required for state agencies from renewable sources by 2022.

Meanwhile, Dominion is entering the offshore wind business in a mammoth way with its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, a $7.8 billion, 2.6-gigawatt wind farm to be built about 27 miles offshore from Virginia Beach. Baine says it is the largest project in Dominion’s history. It also will be the country’s largest and first utility-owned wind farm, featuring about 180 wind turbines, each rising more than 800 feet above the ocean surface. Once in operation, it’s estimated that the wind farm will generate $11 million annually in state and local tax revenues, according to a study by Glen Allen-based Mangum Economics commissioned by the Hampton Roads Alliance.

At this point, the project, sited in a federal lease area, is undergoing federal regulatory review and does not appear to have hit significant headwinds. The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME) has been working with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Army Corps of Engineers to keep the project moving as part of the Biden administration’s goal to make all electricity generation in the country green by 2035. DMME director John Warren says that a timeline to establish a second federal lease area in Virginia waters for other offshore wind projects is already in development.

Construction on the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm is expected to begin in 2024. To facilitate that, Dominion is building the nation’s first U.S.-chartered wind-turbine-installation ship, the Charybdis, in Brownsville, Texas. The $500 million vessel will be able to install a wind turbine a day, with a 2026 target completion date.

Appalachian’s plans to tap into wind power are much more modest. Beam says that Appalachian will add about 200 megawatts of onshore wind power in the next five years, with an eventual goal of reaching 2,200 megawatts.

Dominion Energy’s Remington Solar facility in Fauquier County Photos courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.
Dominion Energy’s Remington Solar facility in Fauquier County Photos courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.

Solar systems

Just six years ago, Dominion was generating only 1 megawatt of electricity from solar power — or enough to provide electricity to 250 households. Daudani blames that puny figure on solar not being cost-competitive. Since then, though, costs have come way down, and Dominion now has 5,249 megawatts of solar in operation or under development, including nine projects that the Virginia State Corporation Commission approved in May. At optimum output, these nine facilities will be capable of powering 125,000 homes.

Appalachian plans to add 210 megawatts of solar in the next five years, but Beam cautions that “the size of the projects can and may change.” His company’s end goal is to have 3,400 megawatts of solar by 2050.

Just like the wind farm in the Blue Ridge, however, land-use issues surrounding solar have begun to crop up. The VCEA specifies that all solar farms generating power for the commonwealth must be located in Virginia, and it is estimated that Virginia will need about 60 square miles of solar panels to meet its energy needs in 2050. Most of these solar farms will be in rural areas.

In June, in what could be a harbinger of battles to come, Frederick County supervisors rejected a proposal to build an 80-acre solar plant near Gore, citing concerns about preserving agriculture land and the area’s rural character. Hollow Road Solar LLC subsequently filed a $7.5 million lawsuit against the supervisors.

“Are there challenges related to land use?” says Dominion’s Baine. “Yes. There is a wide range of views on land use and property rights, [but] we are working with each and every locality to support their needs.”

Dominion Energy plans to replace all gasoline-fueled Virginia school buses with electric buses by 2030. Photos courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.
Dominion Energy plans to replace all diesel-fueled Virginia school buses with electric buses by 2030. Photos courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.

The Southern Environmental Law Center is a supporter of solar energy, but Cleveland cautions that “the purpose is not to overbuild, but to keep the lights on.” He would like to see more effort going into locating solar facilities on marginal sites such as brownfields, landfills and abandoned parking lots instead of on agricultural land. But he agrees with DMME’s Warren about initiatives to locate solar farms on previously mined sites in far Southwest Virginia. Warren calls that “a win-win situation for everyone.” 

In addition to the state eyeing old mining sites for solar farms, Warren says the state government also has purchased power agreements on six solar farms as part of its 2022 goal and is encouraging community colleges to implement solar systems to generate power for individual buildings.

Warren sounds a warning, though, about the eventual success of the VCEA. The infrastructure for all green power initiatives will require mineral extraction, he says, something that many environmentalists oppose. “Establishing a domestic raw material supply chain is not environmental treason,” he says. “We have to flip the script, or we are headed down a big collision course.”

Energy storage

Of the three main sources of green energy, storing energy produced by sources like solar and wind presents the biggest challenge. The VCEA stipulates that Dominion and Appalachian must have 2,700 megawatts and 400 megawatts of storage capacity respectively by 2035, but so far, costs remain high and storage technology is less than satisfactory.

“Batteries are still pretty expensive compared to alternatives,” says Beam with Appalachian. He expects prices will come down in the next five to 10 years, but, for now, his company has a couple of bidders on small storage projects.

Dominion is investing $33 million in four pilot storage projects for a combined 16 megawatts of energy storage capacity but, once tapped, that power will last just four hours. “We’d like to see that duration get longer,” says Baine. For now, he says, “It’s a slower ramp for deployment.” It’s also a long way from the 400-megawatt requirement.

Dominion has found one solution to that problem with its innovative electric school bus program. In a $15 million pilot project started last year, Dominion provided 50 electric school buses to local school systems across Virginia. Pending General Assembly approval, Dominion proposes to put 1,000 electric school buses on the road by 2025 and to completely replace diesel-powered school buses in Virginia by 2030. When not in use, these buses could be used like a fleet of mobile batteries to supply power back to the grid, or to act as mobile power stations during power outages or emergencies. Dominion has estimated that the program would cost each of its Virginia customer households about $12 a year.

Nevertheless, both utilities are moving toward the goal of a carbon-free future, with a certain measure of faith that clean energy and storage technologies will only get better the closer they get to 2045 and 2050.

“In an ideal world, we would be all carbon-free by 2035,” says McClellan, referring to the goal date the Biden administration has set for a carbon-free electricity industry. But 2035 was a no-go in the Virginia General Assembly, and McClellan says she’s comfortable with the 2050 goal and confident that the VCEA provides the framework to meet it.

Since the law’s passage, McClellan says, “We’ve already gone from the back of the pack to the top five or six states [in solar energy generation].”

But the state senator also is a believer in the Russian proverb that became a Ronald Reagan mantra: “Trust but verify.”

“We will be monitoring progress very closely,” McClellan says.