Thanks to a new state law customers of Dominion Energy received a small rebate this month, and will again in January. Now state regulators are getting their first look at how the law will affect Virginia’s power grid.
The new law allows Dominion to take extra earnings and reinvest in the power grid, instead of reducing rates. According to plans filed this week with the State Corporation Commission, Dominion plans to use those excess earnings to create a new online platform for customers, and install smart meters.
“Adding smart meters, intelligent grid devices and other important digital pieces of hardware so that we can pinpoint outages and restore power much more quickly,” explains Dominion spokesperson Rayhan Daudani.
To help get support from environmental groups, the new law also included a renewable energy goal. Dominion says it will meet more than half the goal in the next three years -- by building two new solar facilities and a small wind farm off Virginia Beach.
“By early 2022, to be able to have that much solar and wind energy in development or under construction, we feel pretty good about and I think our customers will too,” says Daudani.
The full ten year plan is expected to cost about 3 billion dollars.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
