Generating Buzz

Virginia SCC approves $1.47 billion Dominion Energy plant

The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) has approved Dominion Energy’s highly controversial $1.47 billion natural gas plant, as well as a rate hike for customers meant to help fund said development. On Tuesday, Nov. 25, the SCC — which regulates several businesses and economic interests in Virginia — approved the construction and operation of a natural gas plant that Dominion Energy has dubbed the “Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center” (CERC).

According to the Application, the CERC would be an approximately 944 MW (nominal) flexible fuel electric generating facility comprising four natural gas-fired, General Electric Vernova 7-F combustion turbines.

Dominion Energy Virginia’s North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Va. The plant is one of many the utility has in its home state. --Courtesy of Dominion Energy.

Dominion asserted that the proposed project would be located within the footprint of a recently retired coal unit (Unit 6), and alongside two existing gas-fired combined cycle units (Units 7 and 8), at the company’s existing Chesterfield Power Station site in Chesterfield, Virginia. Dominion projected the CERC could be commercially operational by June 1, 2029.

Dominion stated the proposed project is needed to provide system reliability. Specifically, Dominion said that "current resources are inadequate to ensure such reliability going forward, particularly given projected demand growth; the changing nature of the supply portfolio; and dynamics within the company’s service territory, its transmission delivery zone, and in PJM Interconnection, LLC, the Regional Transmission Organization."

The company further contended that there is a critical need for new, fully dispatchable generation to meet the needs of the company’s customers, particularly during times of peak demand, and the proposed project is the only viable resource that can meet those needs by 2030.