Wise Energy for Virginia responds to the filing of Dominion’s 2013 Integrated Resource Plan

Press Statement: The Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition

For Immediate Release: August 30, 2013

Dominion’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is required to evaluate how the company will meet its customer’s energy needs over the next fifteen years at the lowest reasonable cost. In a report released earlier this week,  entitled “Changing Course: A Clean Energy Investment Plan for Dominion Virginia Power,” a team of independent research firms showed that accelerating investments in clean energy resources like solar, wind, and energy efficiency would cost less than building large new fossil-fired power plants.

While we are still reviewing the filing, our preliminary assessment of a few key issues includes the following:

• Dominion’s preferred plan would add just 220 megawatts (MW) of solar power by 2028, far short of the 2,450 MW of solar that the Changing Course report demonstrated that Dominion could add by 2027 through company-owned and customer-owned installations. It is also far short of the 735 MW that the Georgia regulators have required Georgia Power to add by 2016, without increasing customer rates.
• Dominion did not select a plan that would take advantage of the estimated 2,000 MW of offshore wind in the Virginia Offshore Wind Energy Area, even though the company has publicly stated that it will bid in the federal government’s September 4th competitive lease auction. Rather, Dominion’s only plans regarding offshore wind include a small 12 MW offshore wind demonstration project.
• While the Changing Course report revealed that Dominion could implement energy efficiency programs that would cost-effectively conserve almost 3,000 MW by 2027, Dominion’s plans would reach just 544 MW by 2028.
• Dominion is moving forward with its plan to retire Yorktown Power Station Units 1 and 2 and Chesapeake Energy Center Units 1 through 4 by the end of next year. Continuing to operate these old, dirty coal-fired units, which were built in the 1950s and 1960s, would be prohibitively expensive for Dominion’s customers.

“The environmental and public health benefits of clean energy resources have long been clear,” said Angela Navarro, attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

For more information, visit: http://www.wiseenergyforvirginia.org/new-power/changing-course/