Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger wants to make things cheaper in Virginia as soon as possible, and one area she’s targeting is electricity. And while power generation takes time to build, former governor Terry McAuliffe is pushing a traditional alternative while Virginians wait for more renewables.
As Virigina’s data center economy grows, so does the commonwealth’s demand for power. And while a recent rate hike was approved, Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger is hoping renewable energy can fill in the gaps.
“Small modular reactors, which we have coming to Virginia, are still years and years down the road. If you want a natural gas plant, that still takes multiple years," Spanberger told a crowd at a Politico event earlier this week. "One of the fastest ways we can get to generation is through solar.”
But anyone who's tracked Virginia's growing large scale solar generation knows even optimistic timelines may not see new projects online for years.
Enter former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. He and his new Democrat-led, national group, Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future is pitching natural gas among short term solutions.
“We need to do it in a smart, environmentally safe way," McAuliffe told Radio IQ in an interview Wednesday. "We should never do any energy need that does not meet the strictest environmental standards.”
But McAuliffe isn’t relying on the Trump administration for the permitting approval - whatever projects get approved, he thinks, Virginia’s legislature and regulatory bodies should be the ones scrutinizing the process.
“You can’t rely on the feds, you’ve got to do it at the state level," the former governor said. "We have to protect our environment in Virginia."
McAuliffe added he feels Democrats can only retake the House by cutting costs and, in the short term, it's natural gas.
“We’ve got to be helping people; we’ve got to be seen bringing costs down," he said. "And [among] the biggest costs? Energy.”
Both Spanberger and House Speaker Don Scott have signaled a willingness to amend Virginia’s Clean Economy Act, the commonwealth’s landmark environmental law that set high bars for renewables and seeks to phase out fossil fuels.
Whether or not Spanberger agrees with McAuliffe is unclear, but there may be some good news on the power generation front: Dominion Energy's Coastal Virginia’s Offshore Wind project is set to bring over 2 gigawatts of power onto the grid by the end of 2026.
Virginians have been paying about $11 a month for the construction of that project, in line with how power infrastructure costs are usually doled out over ratepayers. That will go down over time, and over the life over the project, CVOW is expected to credit ratepayers about $0.63 a month.
There's also a large amount of solar in the pipeline.
Dominion says they're gearing up to have 50% of new power generation come from solar as part of their long-term plan. And they recently pitched a 1.2 megawatt project, the largest ever for the Commonwealth.
"We've added roughly one gigawatt of solar to Virginia every year in recent years and we'll continue to do so for the next 15, 20 years," Aaron Ruby with Dominion Energy told Radio IQ, noting 75% of new power generation will be carbon free, renewables and nuclear.
As for natural gas, it remains the largest share of Virginia’s energy mix and is set to represent about 25% of the new power generation in that same long-term plan.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
