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Friday, June 5, 2020

How about a 40% electricity rate hike in Virginia over the next decade?

Dominion Energy is a 
regulated monopoly 
that makes a good profit 
on every dollar they spend.

A lot more spending 
is mandated by Virginia’s 
new net zero carbon law. 

Approval of a Dominion
plan is ahead.

The plan is an invitation 
to propose specific projects. 

No engineering 
has been done yet.

Dominion’s 
15 year plan 
calls for ongoing 
rate increases 
of about 3% per year
 for the next 10 years -
-- roughly +40% 
over the next decade.

The Virginia Legislature 
ordered Dominion Energy 
to spend billions of dollars 
for adding a huge collection 
of expensive, intermittent 
wind and solar farms. 

A 40% rate hike
over the next decade 
is just the beginning 
of expensive electricity
in Dominion’s Virginia.



The 15-year plan does not 
come close to meeting the 2045
net zero carbon requirements.

The renewables build plan 
includes over 5,000 MW 
of offshore wind generation. 

That would cost $5 billion 
on land -- much more 
when built off shore.

Offshore wind facilities 
will have to face relatively
frequent hurricanes 
and tropical storms. 

This vulnerability 
may require a stronger 
than usual design 
for both the towers 
and their foundations



Add a huge 16,000 MW 
of new solar generation.

The typical utility scale 
solar project is just 
a few hundred MW.



There is also 2,700 MW
(discharge rate) of storage, 
probably billions of dollars 
worth of batteries. 

Together these three items 
add up to about 24,000 MW,
 roughly equal to Dominion’s 
total existing generating capacity, 
a lot of which will be shut down.



Intermittent wind and solar 
requires an enormous amount 
of reliable backup capacity, 
especially for periods of hot 
weather with low wind speeds.

The Bermuda high is a 
massive high pressure system 
that causes summer heat waves. 

In Virginia this often means 
temperatures near 100 F. 
for a week at a time, which causes 
the maximum use of electricity 
the state will see.

A big feature of this 
stagnant high is that
there is is no useful 
wind power. 

Wind generators need sustained 
winds of 25-30 mph to generate 
full power. 

With winds less than 8-10 mph 
they generate nothing and this 
is what you get during 
a Bermuda high.

At today’s prices batteries 
are far too expensive 
to do this backup job. 

The biggest battery backup 
sites in the world only provide 
about 20 minutes of backup, 
not 16 hours a day for solar, 
or a week’s worth for wind.