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Re: Virginia Electric and Power Company’s Integrated Resource Plan filing pursuant to Va. Code § 56-597 el seq.

Staff filed comments on Hearing Examiner’s report.  

In its comments Staff expressed support for a number of recommendations in the report and made no objections.

Parties filed comments on Hearing Examiner’s report (12/29–1/2/24). 

Of note: (1) all parties supported the report’s finding that Dominion’s IRP is not reasonable and in the public interest except for Dominion, which argued that the finding is “based on one perceived deficiency—compliance with a statute applicable to a future CPCN request and not part of the standard of review before the Commission in this proceeding” given that it “notes that no other single “potential” deficiency rises to the level as the compliance with § 56,-585.1 A 5—a statute not part of the standard of review in this proceeding^— as a reason to withhold the reasonable and public interest finding”; (2) Sierra Club objected that the reports seeming assumption that the least cost VCEA plan “does not need to include all of the statutory requirements of the VCEA—only the carbon regulations considered at the time of the 2020 IRP” is “inconsistent with the plain language of the 2020 IRP Final Order”; (3) Sierra Club objected to the conclusion that “Dominion’s modeling of RGGI ‘appears to have provided the information contemplated by the 2022 RPS Order’,” given that it failed to provide “at least one optimized build-plan for a scenario in which Virginia remains in RGGI”; (4) Sierra Club argued that “there is no reason to believe, and no evidence to support, that construction constraints, such as PJM transmission queue issues, will persist for fifteen years,” and recommended that SCC “should require Dominion, in the 2024 IRP and all subsequent IRPs, to lift or ease the build limits it placed on solar and battery storage and justify the limit it chooses”; and (5) Sierra Club objected to “the IRP’s inconsistent treatment of new and developing technologies,” noting that “It refused to include long duration energy storage because it has not been deployed at scale, but it had no concerns with including SMRs, which likewise, have not been deployed at scale and are not commercially available.”

As background, Dominion Energy Virginia filed 2023 update to its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan. Of interest, a significant increase in the expected peak and energy demand in the Dominion Energy Zone over the planning period, with annual peak and energy load growth of nearly 5% and 7%. According to Dominion, “the increase is driven primarily by data centers and, to a lesser extent, electrification in both the Company’s service territory and in other service areas within the Dominion Energy Zone.”

Staff Comments. Staff Comments. (12/15/2023)
Hearing Examiner Report  (12/08/2023)
2023-00066   (05/04/2023)

(Dominion Energy Virginia Integrated Resource Plan