Monthly Archives: June 2022

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em? Dominion Energy now selling residential solar

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Sierra Club members talk to Richmond homeowner Kevin Ciafarini about his experience with solar.

Dominion Energy never used to be happy about customers producing their own energy from solar. “Hostile” is more the word that springs to mind. The company has traditionally seen privately owned solar arrays as competition: The more solar panels people put on their roofs, the less electricity they buy from their utility.

But Virginia has long allowed net metering, and in 2020 our General Assembly came down firmly on the side of customers by expanding opportunities for onsite solar. Consumers responded with the enthusiasm legislators hoped for. Industry statistics show annual residential solar installations in the commonwealth roughly tripled from 2019 to today. 

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Virginia homeowners and businesses in the market for a solar array can now buy it from a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dominion Energy called BrightSuite. The BrightSuite website touts some of the same customer benefits that solar advocates have been pointing out all these years: consumer savings, carbon reductions, stable electric bills. And why shouldn’t Dominion sell solar? As the website declares, “We embrace change with a commitment first and foremost to meet our customers’ evolving energy needs.”

Well, amen to that! With climate chaos impacting people’s lives and high fossil fuel prices driving up utility bills faster than the rate of inflation, customers’ energy needs certainly have evolved, and they do now include onsite solar arrays. We just didn’t expect to hear that from Dominion. 

But that’s okay, we welcome latecomers! Moreover, while Dominion’s entry into the residential market will make some people uneasy, it could goose demand, growing the distributed solar market for everyone while pushing out the price-gougers.   

First, though, let’s address that unease. Having an affiliate of the local utility compete for a homeowner’s business puts independent installers at a definite disadvantage. Dominion has a much broader marketing reach, and BrightSuite’s use of the Dominion name carries an implied promise of trustworthiness. In a market crowded with competitors, name recognition and the assurance that a company isn’t going away any time soon are distinct advantages. 

But Dominion’s entry into the retail solar business could ultimately be good for independent installers. Dominion doesn’t do anything inexpensively, and its home solar offering appears to be no exception. If Dominion persuades more customers to look into home solar, and those customers then comparison shop, companies that can offer a better deal will get more business.  

Sarah Vogelsong recently wrote about a project of the HR Climate Hub, which solicited quotes from solar installers for the same single-family home in order to compare prices and service, and to flag potentially predatory sellers. The website offers helpful advice to Virginia homeowners about how solicit and compare offers. It also lists prices and terms from a dozen companies, ranging from a low of $2.10 per watt from Tesla to a high of $5.62 from Power Home Solar. Two small, well-regarded Virginia Beach installers submitted bids of $2.80 and $2.85. BrightSuite’s quote (added after the Mercury article ran) came in at $3.25. 

HR Climate Hub’s figures square with information from the Solar Energy Industries Association, which provides advice for consumers and tracks the average cost of residential solar systems through a service called SolarReviews. According to the website, “As of Jun 2022, the average cost of solar panels in Virginia is $2.66 per watt making a typical 6000 watt (6 kW) solar system $11,797 after claiming the 26% federal solar tax credit now available.”

I asked HR Climate Hub for additional information about the BrightSuite quote and was glad to learn the company uses high quality REC solar panels that carry a 25-year warranty, along with microinverters made by Enphase, a top-quality American company. So, no bottom shelf components here. However, the quote did not mention warranty or maintenance information for the installation work. These do not appear on the BrightSuite website either, apart from a one-year performance guarantee. 

It goes without saying that anyone investing thousands of dollars on a major home improvement should shop around, compare prices, and read warrantees. Prices listed on HR Climate Hub and SolarReviews are a good starting point. Where available, bulk purchase programs like those offered by Solarize NoVa and Virginia Solar United Neighbors provide discounts as well as expert advice. 

But it wouldn’t be surprising if even well-informed consumers choose to pay a premium to get a solar installation from BrightSuite simply because the company is associated with their utility. Name recognition goes a long way in marketing, and a lot of customers will want the security of knowing Dominion Energy isn’t likely to take the money and disappear into the night. With this marketing advantage, I expect BrightSuite will quickly emerge as a market leader in spite of its higher-than-average price. 

Ultimately, however, Dominion’s entry into the market may grow the pie for everyone. Homeowners who have held back from installing solar because they don’t know who to trust may feel confident enough to call BrightSuite. Once they have one quote, many will comparison shop.  

At the very least, Dominion’s entry into the home solar market should set a price ceiling. Why would anyone pay $5 per watt or more for a solar array from a company they probably don’t know anything about, when they could get $3.25 from their utility? Price gougers, beware: your time here is up.

This article appeared in the Virginia Mercury on June 17, 2022.

Dear readers: Many of you know that although I write independently of any organization, I also volunteer for the Sierra Club and serve on its legislative committee. The Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter urgently needs funds to support its legislative and political work towards a clean energy transition. So this summer I’m passing the hat and asking you to make a donation to our “Ten Wild Weekends” fundraising campaign. Thanks!

West Virginia wants to raise Virginia power bills

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photo of mountain scraped of soil for coal mining
Under the West Virginia order, customers will pay more to support the state’s coal industry. Sierra Club photo.

Most people are aware by now that inflation has hit the energy sector hard, with fossil fuels in particular skyrocketing in price over the past year. 

Dominion Energy Virginia, the state’s dominant utility, says it needs to charge residential customers an extra $14.93 per month on average to cover higher natural gas prices. Appalachian Power, which serves Southwest Virginia as well as West Virginia, has already asked the West Virginia Public Service Commission for permission to increase residential bills by an average of $18.41 to cover higher coal and gas prices, and is likely to seek a similar increase from Virginia customers this summer.  

But for residents of Southwest Virginia, that could be just the beginning of the rate increases: West Virginia wants to force APCo customers to pay even more, and not just in West Virginia. If the West Virginia PSC has its way, Virginia customers would have to shoulder their “share” of the cost of propping up two money-losing West Virginia coal plants. 

The PSC’s order of May 13 reiterates previous instructions to APCo to keep its West Virginia coal plants running at least 69 percent of the time, even when the plants lose money. This decision comes on top of a decision in October of 2021 allowing APCo to charge customers for hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to prolong the life of these coal plants out to 2040. An expert hired by the Sierra Club found it would cost up to $1.1 billion more to keep the plants operating until 2040 instead of retiring them in 2028. 

For Virginia customers, the problem is that these West Virginia coal plants, Amos and Mountaineer, also provide electricity to Southwest Virginia, so Southwest Virginia residents have to pay for them. Even before the fuel price spikes of the past year and a half, APCo wanted to charge its Virginia customers for the upgrades approved by the West Virginia PSC. The company will certainly also want Virginians to pay for the even higher costs that will follow from the 69 percent run requirement.

Virginia’s State Corporation Commission has so far held off on approving the millions of dollars that would be Virginia’s share of the costs to upgrade Amos and Mountaineer. But with the West Virginia PSC plowing ahead to support its state’s favored industry, it’s not at all clear the SCC will stand its ground. 

APCo’s study claims that closing Amos and Mountaineer will cost ratepayers more than keeping them open, ensuring there will be a battle of the experts come the September hearing. The study is opaque in its methodology and reasoning. But APCo almost certainly didn’t assume the plants would have to run 69 percent of the time regardless of market conditions, and it probably also didn’t factor in today’s sky-high fossil fuel costs that further support retiring the coal plants and investing in cheaper, price-stable wind and solar.

Obviously, the biggest losers here are West Virginia residents. They will bear the largest share of these costs, one more price of living in a state run by fossil fuel oligarchs.

In an alternate universe, West Virginia would have developed an economy that took advantage of its extraordinary natural beauty, one based on small farms, four-season tourism, artist enclaves and vacation homes: think Vermont but with better weather. Instead, fossil fuel and mining barons bought up mineral rights, paid off politicians, and despoiled vast swaths of the state, leaving most residents dependent on dirty jobs or piecing together a living from low-wage work. 

I’m rooting for West Virginia to change course for a post-coal world, but that’s not easy for a state where politicians, bureaucrats and industry conspire to maintain the power of extraction industries. Virginians, however, shouldn’t be forced to enable this misuse of power. The SCC should reject West Virginia’s effort to make Virginia customers pay to prop up West Virginia coal.

This article originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury on June 10, 2022.

Dear readers: Many of you know that although I write independently of any organization, I also volunteer for the Sierra Club and serve on its legislative committee. The Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter urgently needs funds to support its legislative and political work towards a clean energy transition. So this summer I’m passing the hat and asking you to make a donation to our “Ten Wild Weekends” fundraising campaign. Thanks!