Tag Archives: energy

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The data center energy crisis is now official

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Data center between housing community and a bike path
A data center in Ashburn, Virginia. Photo by Hugh Kenny, Piedmont Environmental Council.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a politician in possession of elected office must be in want of large economic development projects. 

It does not seem to matter that in the case of Virginia, this compulsion is catapulting us into a costly energy crisis that will raise utility bills for residents; that the public shows no love for this industry; and that the benefits to be gained (mostly in the form of construction jobs) will continue only as long as new projects follow one another in perpetuity until the landscape is consumed by concrete and transmission wires. 

To the credit of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), however, it has tried to sound the alarm. JLARC’s report, “Data Centers in Virginia,” released December 9, describes the challenges facing the state as a result of the massive, ongoing buildout of this astoundingly resource-intensive industry. Many of JLARC’s conclusions seem way too sanguine to me, especially around risks to regional water supplies and air pollution from diesel generators, and the policy options it offers don’t always hit the mark.

But on the threat to Virginia’s energy supply, JLARC is blunt: Building enough infrastructure to provide electricity for even just half the data centers projected for development across the state will be difficult, requiring far more generating facilities than are under development today. 

As for the current policy of allowing completely unconstrained data center growth – indeed, subsidizing it as we do now with tax exemptions to the tune of nearly a billion dollars per year – JLARC notes we are headed for a tripling of the state’s electricity usage over just the next decade and a half.  Meeting that much demand, says the report, would be “very difficult to achieve,” even if the state jettisoned the carbon emission limits imposed by the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA).

For those of you unfamiliar with the vocabulary of bureaucrats, “very difficult to achieve” is a term of art that translates roughly as, “This is nuts.”

It might have been better if JLARC had employed the vernacular, because as it is, Virginia’s elected leaders will probably take “very difficult” to be a sort of heroic challenge, like beating the Russians to the moon, when what JLARC means is more like achieving lasting peace in the Middle East. 

One problem is cost. The law of supply and demand dictates that a massive increase in energy demand that isn’t matched by an equally massive increase in energy supply will lead to higher prices for all customers. Yet new energy projects cost money, and under traditional ratemaking principles that also means higher rates for everyone. The result is that it will be impossible to protect residents from higher utility bills, unless changes are made to the way costs get allocated. 

(Figuring out how to protect residents and other non-data center customers is currently a focus of the State Corporation Commission, which held a technical conference on data centers on December 16th. Judging by what the experts it convened had to say, the SCC has its work cut out for it.) 

Even if ordinary residents could be protected, the bigger problem is that increasing the supply of energy to keep up with soaring data center demand will not be easy, fast or cheap. JLARC warns that providing enough low-cost energy requires that gas plants, solar facilities, battery projects and transmission lines all be built at a pace Virginia has never achieved before, along with onshore wind farms that have never found takers here (though that may be changing), offshore wind projects that currently lack a pathway to development, and starting ten years from now, new nuclear plants in the form of small modular reactors (SMRs) that haven’t yet achieved commercial viability.

Moreover, most of that new generation and transmission will have to overcome local opposition. On the gas side, Dominion Energy’s plans for a new plant in Chesterfield County face fierce resistance from the local community, which argues it has been burdened by fossil fuel pollution for too many years already. Why should residents suffer to benefit Big Tech?

Clean energy also struggles at the local level. Industry representatives told members of the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR) on December 17 that more than 30 localities have effectively banned utility solar projects within their borders. Rural leaders openly take pride in their prejudice against solar. Yet legislators are squeamish about overriding local siting authority, even when counties that welcome data centers turn down the solar facilities needed to power them. 

And of course, generation projects involve willing landowners. When it comes to transmission lines that are forced on property owners through eminent domain – many of which will be needed only to carry power to data centers – the public backlash is typically even greater.

Given so much local resistance to new generation and transmission, the fact that so many legislators nonetheless remain wedded to the data center buildout testifies to the ability of the human mind to compartmentalize. 

For legislators who care about climate, JLARC has more bad news: Fully half the new data center growth coming to Virginia is slated to occur in the territories of rural electric cooperatives, which are largely unaffected by VCEA limits. In addition, very large customers of Dominion and APCo have their own VCEA loophole: if they meet certain requirements, they can leave their utility to buy power from competitive service providers. Thus, if Virginia is serious about decarbonization, it will have to tighten, not loosen, the VCEA.

The report comes with some caveats. JLARC used a team of consultants to model approaches to meeting the supply gaps, and a lot of assumptions go into the consultant’s report without a lot of details. The consultant group says it chose its mix of resources with a view to least cost, but it acknowledges that different assumptions would change the results. It may not have accounted for the fact that renewable energy and storage prices continue to drop; meanwhile, fossil gas prices are so volatile that the one certain  thing you can say about any price forecast is that it will be wrong. Moreover, it appears the effects of re-entering the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative were not modeled; nor were the social costs of carbon, both of which favor zero-emission sources over fossil fuel plants. 

Where there are details, some beg to be questioned. Both the consultants and JLARC take for granted that a shortage of generation in Virginia can be made up by importing electricity from other states. An easy way out, sure, but it works only if other states are producing a surplus. Unless tech companies are required to secure their own carbon-free energy supply, there is no way to guarantee imports will be available. Contrary to one of JLARC’s suggestions, then, retail choice should not be curtailed. The better move is to expand shopping options for large customers, so long as the electricity they buy is zero-carbon.

Even more suspect is the idea that, in order to comply with the VCEA, all gas plants will convert to burning green hydrogen in 2045. The report might as well say, “and then a miracle occurs.” A miracle would be more likely.

However unserious, hydrogen as a placeholder for any hoped-for technology that isn’t available today demonstrates the fundamental problem confronting Virginia’s damn-the-torpedoes approach to data centers. A refusal to put constraints on the buildout means taking a leap into the unknown and hoping something will happen to save us from the consequences of our profligacy.

And sure, maybe it will work out. Legislators tend to be optimists, and they are already betting on bright, shiny objects like SMRs, fusion, and anything else not close enough for its costs and drawbacks to be fully evident. (Not that I’m immune, but personally I’m betting on advanced geothermal, which is not just bright and shiny but already here.) And hey, for all we know, artificial intelligence, the technology most culpable for today’s energy crisis, might even produce some unexpected new energy source. 

Or it might not. Given that most of the data center buildout will happen in just the next five years, we might need an actual miracle. 

On the flip side, maybe new technology will reduce the energy demand of data centers by orders of magnitude. That would be a fantastic outcome from the standpoint of climate, water and energy — though it would end the construction gravy train in Virginia and leave a wasteland of empty concrete warehouses and stranded energy infrastructure.

Either way, the unconstrained buildout of data centers has handed Virginia leaders a problem that is, in the parlance of JLARC, “very difficult” indeed.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury on December 24, 2024.

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Data centers approved, solar farms rejected: What is going on in rural Virginia?

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If Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly are aligned on one thing, it’s their enthusiasm for bringing more data centers to the commonwealth. Where they part ways is in how to provide enough electricity to power them. Youngkin and most Republican legislators advocate for an “all of the above” approach that includes fossil gas as well as renewables; Democrats are committed to staying the course on the transition to zero-carbon energy, with a near-term emphasis on low-cost solar. 

Data centers are making the transition harder, but so is local resistance to building solar. General Assembly members mostly understand the connection, leading to a lively debate in last year’s legislative session over whether to override some local permit denials for solar projects – and if so, how to ensure the localities still have some say. Though none of the legislative proposals moved forward last year, the topic has become a central one for the recently revamped Commission on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR). 

In January, the General Assembly is likely to consider legislation to override local solar permit denials in some cases, such as last year’s HB636 from Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, or another approach that would break the solar logjam. It remains to be seen, however,  whether legislators will take any action on data centers.

The problem has grown only more urgent as localities have continued to approve new data center proposals with little thought given to where and how they will get the power to serve them.

Ann Bennett, Sierra Club Virginia’s data center chair, has been tracking data center permit applications across the state. She counts at least two dozen Virginia counties with data centers under development, including rural areas far outside the industry’s stronghold in suburban Northern Virginia. By Bennett’s calculation, data centers existing and under development in Virginia will consume at least 100,000 acres. 

Even as local governments woo data centers, many have become hostile to solar development. A presentation from the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia, which tracks solar permitting across Virginia, shows that far more local permits for solar facilities have been denied or withdrawn than were approved this year. 

In some cases, county boards that approve data center development also reject permits for solar farms. Sometimes, it happens even at the same meeting.

In an effort to understand this paradox, I watched footage from two county board meetings in Hanover County, one in March of this year and the other in September. At the March meeting, county supervisors approved a 1,200-acre data center complex for an area north of Ashland. Later the same night, they denied a permit for a utility-scale solar project. 

The parcels of land slated to be developed for the data center complex “included wooded areas, recently-logged areas, open fields, wetlands, ponds and stream corridors.” The developer plans to build about 30 data centers on the property, each 110 feet tall (about 10 stories), with setbacks from the property line ranging from 150 to 250 feet. The complex will require 700,000 gallons per day of cooling water. When fully developed, the data centers are expected to total a staggering 2,400 megawatts (MW) of power capacity, not far short of what all of Loudoun County had in 2022. There was no discussion of where so much electricity would come from. 

Public testimony was overwhelmingly negative. The objections echoed those that have been widely reported in response to projects such as the Prince William Digital Gateway: noise, light, a massive increase in truck traffic, secrecy surrounding the project, air pollution from diesel back-up generators. 

Yet the Hanover supervisors voted unanimously in favor of the project. It came down to money: the developer promised a tax benefit to the county over 20 years of $1.8 billion, plus upfront cash for road improvements and a $100,000 donation to a park. Supervisor Jeff Stoneman, who represents the Beaverdam district where the complex will be located, acknowledged his constituents’ concerns but noted that the revenue would be a “game-changer for this community.” 

Even for me, as thoroughly aware as I am of all the downsides of data center sprawl, the negative impacts on communities, the risks to our water and energy security, the possibility that folks will be left with nothing but regrets – well, I just have to say: It’s really hard to argue with $1.8 billion. Rural leaders see Loudoun County raking in revenue from data centers, letting it cut taxes for everyone else. Why wouldn’t they want in on that?

As I noted before, though, there was no discussion of how or where the enormous amount of electricity needed to power the data centers would be generated. This disconnect was underscored later in the same meeting when the supervisors voted to reject a 20 MW solar project on 100 acres of a 315-acre site, in the same district as the data center complex they had just approved. 

https://virginiamercury.com/2024/11/26/under-pressure-from-the-scc-dominion-reveals-the-true-cost-of-data-centers/embed/#?secret=jfq5xtYiIk#?secret=eWAcqNFGWg

It was especially hard to understand the denial of this particular permit. Supervisors agreed the project met all the terms of the county’s solar ordinance, including provisions for the use of native grasses and pollinator plants. Most of the property would remain untouched. The county would receive an upfront cash contribution of $438,600, in addition to the increased tax revenue from the project. The planning commission had recommended approval. No one testified against it; a number of people, including the farmer across the street, testified in its favor.  

Most of the discussion of the project focused on screening the solar panels from view. Supervisors fussed that the trees to be planted at the entrance were too small, and worried that some of the existing mature trees along the road might die off over time and not be replaced. The developer agreed to put larger trees at the entrance, and even to walk the perimeter annually to monitor the health of the trees, and replace any if they needed to.

It was no use. Two of the supervisors wanted to approve the project, but they were outvoted. Stoneman, the Beaverdam supervisor who had led the way in supporting the data center complex, said he worried that erosion might impair the creek on the property, in spite of ample natural buffers, and said he did not have a “comfort level” with the project.

Evidently, the county’s solar ordinance, adopted in 2023, was irrelevant, or at least, misleading. Such objective standards make a developer think it will be worth their while to put in months of planning, public outreach, and working with county staff. But then it turns out that what actually matters is whether a supervisor can achieve a certain undefined “comfort level.” 

Six months after the approval of the 2,400 MW data center complex and the denial of the 20 MW solar facility, another solar project met the same fate, again with Stoneman making the motion to deny the permit. 

This time the project would take up 250 acres of a 1,500-acre site and produce 72 MW of electricity, achieved through stacking the panels to a double height. Again, the project more than met the requirements of the county solar ordinance. The land was described as currently consisting of managed pine forest, already subject to being cut over at any time, and fully 70% of the property would be preserved for conservation. Native grasses would be planted, and sheep would do most of the vegetation management. The shepherd, Marcus Gray of Gray’s Lambscaping, attended the hearing to describe the sheep operations he runs successfully at other solar sites.  

Approval of the project would earn the county roughly $1.7 million upfront, and $300,000 in annual tax revenue. 

Supervisors praised the developer for “a really good application” that “respected” the ordinance and the environment, for the company’s willingness to listen and respond to concerns, and for agreeing to build stormwater basins and sacrifice buildable space in favor of conservation. 

Several members of the public testified in favor of the project, but this time there were also opponents. Some of them repeated common myths about solar panel toxicity and the risk of fires. One woman stated flatly, and obviously incorrectly, that it was not possible to raise sheep at a solar farm because they would die from the heat. 

The supervisors themselves did not appear ill-informed or misinformed, though one expressed surprise that Gray could successfully sell his lamb at farmers markets when buyers knew where they had been raised. (Watching, I could only laugh, because I’ve always thought of the solar-sheep synergy as a great selling point for climate-conscious carnivores.) 

The concern raised most often was the risk of impacts to the nearby North Anna River, though the developer had agreed to shrink the project to accommodate a much greater setback from the river than required. 

Ultimately, however, Supervisor Stoneman’s argument for denying the permit rested on a different argument. He praised the developer for doing a good job, and noted the project was in accordance with all requirements. But, he said, “Beaverdam is just a different place.” People take pride in the rural character and forest and farmland. Our job, he noted, is to protect the trees that are harvested on the site currently, something “that is as important as the power.” 

“Money is not the most important thing,” concluded the man who led the cheering squad for a data center complex in his district six months earlier.  

The two supervisors who had supported the smaller solar facility that had been rejected in March made their best arguments for this project as well, though they ultimately voted with Stoneman as the home supervisor. One said she supported solar “because I’m pro-farm,” and solar is a way to preserve farmland from development. The other noted that the land would certainly be developed one way or another, and the results would almost certainly be worse. Maintaining rural culture is important, he noted, but “we are approving residential development and seeing by-right development that people don’t want either.”

He also warned his colleagues, as he had in the spring, that rejecting good solar projects was going to result in legislation that would take away local authority and give it to the unelected State Corporation Commission. He said he would go along with Stoneman’s motion to deny the permit because “I assume he knows something,” but he made it clear he considered it the wrong decision, and a dangerous one for local autonomy.

Evidently, he had been paying attention to the conversation at the General Assembly.

To be clear, my sympathies lie wholeheartedly with people whose instincts are to protect the woods and fields around them. I share the one Hanover supervisor’s belief that solar is a means to preserve land from permanent development and even improve soil health and wildlife habitat, but I also understand it may be years before some people see sheep grazing under solar panels as a welcome feature in their landscape. 

So I get how a rural county, having sold a little bit of its soul for $1.8 billion, might then slam the door to other development, even after applicants had worked with the county for months in good faith and done everything asked for. 

It’s not a choice I’d make – I’d take solar over data centers every time – but then, no one made it the county’s responsibility to contribute electricity to the grid that serves it, much less to produce the electricity needed to run the data centers it embraced.

This article originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury on December 3, 2024.

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The clean energy revolution will continue

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Photo credit iid.com

Eight years ago last week, I wrote a column titled, “Why Trump won’t stop the clean energy revolution.” Calling global warming a hoax, businessman and reality TV star Donald J. Trump had just been elected with a promise to save coal jobs and pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. 

Climate activists were deeply distraught then, as now. I wrote in 2016, “Reading the news Wednesday morning was like waking up from a nightmare to discover that there really is a guy coming after you with a meat cleaver.”

But as I also wrote, there is only so much damage a president can do when technology, popular opinion and – especially – economics don’t support his agenda. Trump couldn’t save the coal industry (though he tried). Instead, his administration oversaw a 24% decline in coal employment. And where coal supplied 30% of U.S. electricity in 2016, by the time Trump left office it had fallen to 20%. 

In the intervening years, Trump seems to have lost interest in coal mining, even as he continues to embrace fossil gas production. His enthusiasm for gas fracking fits with his drill-baby-drill approach to energy, but it was also intended to win over voters in Pennsylvania, a major producer of shale gas. Ironically, the gas industry insists on calling methane “clean” precisely because burning it emits less CO2 than coal. 

While coal was dying, wind and solar were well on their upswing when Trump took office in 2017, and they continued to advance through his first administration. By 2020, wind and solar had become the cheapest forms of new electric generation. Today, renewable energy supplies more than 21% of the nation’s electricity, while coal’s share has dropped further, to just 16%. Trump or no Trump, technological advances and a thirst for cleaner energy continue to drive new wind and solar generation.

Indeed, the offshore wind industry – famously reviled by Trump – wasted no time last week in congratulating its erstwhile foe on his victory and insisting, hilariously, that his election is a big win for the industry. The first Trump administration, they noted hopefully, “laid out the fundamental framework for our modern offshore wind industry.”

Well, okay. From their lips to Trump’s ears. Trump is hardly known for consistency, and it is not impossible to imagine him softening his position on an industry that is creating well-paying jobs for the blue-collar workers who make up a portion of his base. His Virginia acolyte, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, boasts of overseeing the building of the nation’s largest offshore wind farm. Why shouldn’t Trump pivot? 

Early in the Republican primaries, one candidate opined that all the solar panels and batteries sold in the U.S. are made in China. That wasn’t actually true. For years one U.S. company, First Solar, has ranked among the world’s top ten solar panel manufacturers. Among the domestic manufacturers of both EVs and batteries, one of the largest is Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk is now a Trump darling. It is going to be fascinating to find out whether Musk uses his influence to benefit the clean energy transition generally, or only himself. 

Yet the notion that China dominates solar and battery production is also not wrong. China is eating our lunch on clean energy. Chinese companies produce 80% of the world’s solar panels and more than half of its electric vehicles. Sadly, perhaps, these are not cheap imitations of superior American products. They are world-leading technology. 

Chinese dominance of the world market was a major reason that President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), put so much emphasis on supporting domestic manufacturing. Tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump’s preferred approach, help U.S. companies compete for American consumers, but they don’t support an export market when other countries produce better goods for less money. Even at home, critics note, tariffs mostly just raise prices.

Yet Trump has vowed to repeal the IRA, and given that Congress passed it without Republican support, there is certainly a danger that a Republican Congress will comply. On the other hand, observers note that 80% of the manufacturing tax credits have gone to red states, and this August, 18 House Republicans signed a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson asking to keep the credits. 

I don’t want to sound too optimistic. Wait, let me rephrase that: I don’t feel optimistic at all. We are facing headwinds today that weren’t around in 2016. At that time, gains in energy efficiency meant electricity demand was not increasing, in spite of a growing population. With wind and solar displacing coal, there was a clear pathway for CO2 emissions from the electric sector to continue falling. 

Today, however, the skyrocketing demand for electricity from data centers threatens the progress we’ve made on clean energy. It remains to be seen whether artificial intelligence will unleash efficiency gains and novel technologies that can put carbon reductions back on track. Right now, though, tech companies are so desperate for power that they will take it from wherever they can get it, and regardless of carbon content.  (I notice, though, that they still want it to be cheap and are happy to greenwash it to meet their sustainability goals). 

Perhaps the biggest change from eight years ago is simply that we are that much closer to reaching catastrophic climate tipping points. 2023 was the warmest year on record, and 2024 is on track to surpass it. The effects are evident in the number and costliness of severe weather and wildfires made worse by global warming. (Just ask insurance companies.) It is frustrating, to say the least, to contemplate losing the next four years to an administration that thinks climate change wouldn’t be an issue if we would just stop talking about it.  

Yet Americans of all political stripes continue to support renewable energy by wide margins. And apart from a small minority of vocal climate deniers, most Americans want the U.S. to take stronger action on climate. 

This election revealed deep fault lines among the American public, but one thing we all have in common is the faith that our ability to solve intractable problems is stronger even than our tendency to wish the problems away. 

That’s why, even in the face of such serious headwinds, the clean energy revolution will continue. 

This column was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on November 12, 2024.

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Once again, Dominion’s energy plan falls short. This time, the SCC isn’t having it.

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Dominion Energy headquarters, Richmond, VA

On October 15, Dominion Energy Virginia filed its 2024 integrated resource plan (IRP), and just as in 2023, the company shows no inclination to meet the carbon-cutting requirements of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). Blaming soaring load growth from data centers, Dominion models only scenarios with increasing amounts of fossil fuel generation to supplement its investments in renewable energy and nuclear. A scenario that would actually comply with the law is discussed only as something stakeholders asked for, then dismissed as “infeasible.”

Tellingly, the company notes casually that its own scenarios “evaluate the impacts of” the VCEA, as if the law were merely advisory, while the utility retained the final say. It’s kind of like a driver thoughtfully “evaluating the impact” of a speed limit – and then accelerating.

To be fair, this used to work for Dominion. The State Corporation Commission (SCC) has a long history of criticizing Dominion’s IRPs and ordering the company to do better next time, but never outright rejecting a plan. If traffic cops only ever gave out warnings, you would expect to see more scofflaws.

This year, though, the three-member SCC has two new commissioners, and already they have shown they intend to take their oversight role seriously. The commission didn’t even wait to see what Dominion would come up with before demanding improvements. On October 11, four days before Dominion submitted its IRP, the SCC issued an order instructing the utility to supplement its filing with additional work, to be submitted by November 15.

The task list includes modeling plans that meet the requirements of the VCEA, with at least one that incorporates data center load and one that doesn’t, as well as least-cost plans with and without data centers. In addition, the SCC wants Dominion to break down the costs of new transmission projects to identify the expenses that are primarily due to data center demand. 

The order tacitly acknowledges that the staggering growth of the data center industry in Virginia has upended utility planning. At the same time, the SCC is not giving Dominion a free pass, either on costs or on VCEA requirements. If Dominion believes it can only meet demand reliably by adding expensive gas peaker plants, it is going to have to prove it.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, the SCC plans to convene a technical conference in December to examine issues around serving data center load. Of paramount interest to the commission are the questions of how much it will cost to meet the burgeoning demand, and how to protect other consumers from rate increases for new generation and transmission infrastructure needed only because of one industry. 

The SCC is not alone in its concerns about Dominion’s cavalier approach to its IRP obligations. Last year, with a goal of improving utility oversight, the General Assembly revitalized its Commission on Electric Utility Regulation, which formerly served as a graveyard for utility reform bills. (CEUR used to be pronounced “sewer,” but commission members would dearly love it if you would now call it “the cure.”) 

In a September 16 memo, CEUR director Carrie Hearne recommended members consider a list of reforms that would, among other things, require Dominion to include in its IRP “a VCEA conforming scenario that does not assume to exercise an immediate exemption due to reliability concerns.” This scenario would have to incorporate the social cost of carbon, meet energy efficiency metrics (another area where Dominion has fallen short), plan for the retirement of fossil fuel plants targeted for closure in the VCEA, and assume an “unobstructed” buildout of renewable energy and storage (removing the artificial caps Dominion currently employs). 

In other words, CEUR would like Dominion to follow the law.

Ratepayer and environmental advocates have applauded the more muscular approach being taken by CEUR and the SCC. Dominion, however, has remained steadfastly oblivious to the hints flung at it from all sides.

The company remains unapologetic. In an op-ed, Dominion Energy Chairman Bob Blue insists the company is pursuing an “all of the above” strategy that will produce electricity that is “reliable, affordable and increasingly clean” – an assertion he repeats three times, as if saying it often enough makes it true. 

As the IRP puts it, however, “perceptions of affordability are subjective.” Analyzing its favored scenario using the methodology directed by the SCC, Dominion projects residential bills will rise over the next 15 years from an average of $142.77 today to $315.25 in 2039. 

Let’s be charitable, though. Maybe when Mr. Blue said the company was committed to affordable energy, he meant for data centers.

“Increasingly clean” is even more counter-factual. As reported in the Mercury, “The utility’s previous plan projection said about 95% of electricity generation would be pulled from renewable sources. Tuesday’s updated plan calls for about 80% of generation to be spurred by renewables.” And as with the 2023 IRP, Dominion plans to keep expensive and highly polluting coal plants operating beyond their previous retirement dates, putting the company even further away from “clean.”

Dominion’s 2023 IRP received considerable criticism for projecting a doubling of greenhouse gas emissions by 2048, a year when they should be at zero under the terms of the VCEA. Dominion appears to have learned a lesson from that public shaming, but not the right lesson. The 2024 plan shortens the emissions time frame to 5 years, cutting out reporting for the later years when the proposed new methane gas plants would be in service and spewing out CO2. Instead, the IRP brags about lowering “emissions intensity,” a success it can achieve without cutting carbon, just by selling more electricity.  

Participants at a “people’s hearing” on October 29 protested Dominion’s plans for a new methane gas plant in Chesterfield, Virginia. Photo courtesy Friends of Chesterfield.

So much for affordable and increasingly clean. As for reliable, burning more methane will only exacerbate the climate change and extreme weather that have been wreaking havoc on southeastern utilities’ ability to keep the lights on. The recent storms should be a wake-up call for utilities to ramp up renewables, including distributed solar generation and storage to serve communities, rather than building more centralized, carbon-intensive fossil fuel plants to power data centers.

But some companies, like some people, never learn. Finding itself deep in a hole, Dominion proposes to keep on digging.

This article was first published in the Virginia Mercury on October 28, 2024.

A message to my Northern Virginia friends and climate advocates: please consider joining me at a fundraiser on Sunday, November 10 from 5-7 pm to support the work of the Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter. Special guests include the fabulous Connor Kish, chapter director, and Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous. RSVP and get more information here. Hope to see you there!

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Geothermal energy is having a moment. Could it power Virginia’s data centers?

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National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Drill down far enough into the earth, and you will hit hot rocks. Energy companies have used this heat to generate carbon-free electricity for more than a century. It’s an elegant concept, but it worked only where pockets of heat lay close to the surface, accompanied by steam ready-made to turn turbines. Those limitations confined geothermal power plants to geologically active areas like Iceland, parts of Indonesia, and a few locations in the American West. As of 2023, geothermal energy made up less than half of 1% of U.S. electricity generation. 

Suddenly, that is changing. New technology derived from oil and gas fracking methods is allowing energy companies to drill deep into the earth in places far from geologic activity. Wells can reach miles beneath the surface before branching out horizontally and creating fissures in hard, hot rock. Water injected into the wells comes back to the surface as steam to generate electricity. The steam is recaptured and re-injected to take up heat again, in a virtuous cycle powered by the earth itself. 

The benefits

These “enhanced geothermal” systems can produce 24/7 baseload electricity or fill in around variable sources like wind and solar. They can even be used like batteries to store energy, including for long durations.   

Unlike drilling for fossil fuels, geothermal companies avoid the shale formations that hold hydrocarbons, instead targeting non-porous rock. And since the product is not fossil fuel but steam, the technology produces zero-carbon energy without toxic or radioactive waste. 

Freed from geographic limitations and using the same technology and workforce as the oil and gas industry, geothermal energy is ready to take off fast. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sees it spreading across the country to provide as much as 125 gigawatts (GW) of electricity by 2050. A global estimate suggests the industry could eventually produce 4,600 GW of electricity at a cost of 50 euros (around $55) per megawatt-hour or less.

In 2022 DOE launched an “Earthshot Initiative” to reduce the cost of enhanced geothermal energy in the U.S. to $45 per megawatt-hour (MWh) by 2035. If successful, that would put it at or below the cost of any other new, dispatchable energy source. 

Is this technology the answer to the surging demand for electricity from data centers and artificial intelligence? And could it allow Virginia to keep adding data centers without blowing up its climate goals?

The challenges

We do have to keep in mind that not all silver bullets prove to be sterling. Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are evidence that some highly-anticipated technologies don’t follow the rosy timelines and price projections their boosters promise. 

Unlike SMRs, though, enhanced geothermal systems have already achieved commercial deployment. After successfully demonstrating the technology with a 3.5 MW pilot facility,  Fervo Energy signed a contract last year with Google to provide electricity for its data centers from a 115-MW enhanced geothermal power plant in Nevada. Fervo will deliver the power to the local utility, NV Energy, which will then charge a slightly higher price to Google via a proposed new “clean transition tariff.” Fervo has also signed a deal for an even bigger project that will deliver 400 MW to California utilities. 

Using a different fracking-based technology it calls a “Geopressured Geothermal System,” Houston-based Sage Geosystems recently agreed to supply 150 MW of power for Meta’s data centers beginning in 2027. Sage says it can make electricity not just by extracting heat but also by using pressure, an add-on technology that allows it to offer energy storage independent of steam production. 

Both Fervo and Sage say their methods can be used almost anywhere, and both cite advantages over established energy sources. Like wind and solar, geothermal is renewable and carbon-free, but it isn’t dependent on weather. It also doesn’t require fuel sources like coal and gas that are highly polluting and sometimes unreliable in extreme weather. 

Finally, with a small physical footprint relative to the energy produced, geothermal facilities could be located in urban areas or next to data centers and other large customers without the need for major new transmission lines. 

But of course, the fact that geothermal technology can be used anywhere does not mean it can be deployed profitably everywhere, or at least not yet. A map compiled by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows the most ideal areas are still in the West, where hot rocks lie within a few kilometers of the Earth’s surface. In most of the eastern U.S., deeper wells would be needed to reach the same temperatures. For this reason, DOE sees the technology proving out in the West first before spreading east.

But favorability is not purely a function of geology, according to Ben Serrurier, manager of government affairs and policy at Fervo. I wanted to know how soon geothermal systems could start providing electricity to the world’s largest concentration of data centers, in Northern Virginia. He said the biggest impediment for the industry is not location, but the high cost of capital and the paucity of government support compared to SMRs, hydrogen, and other new technologies. 

In spite of these challenges, Serrurier predicted geothermal would be deployed in Virginia by the latter part of the 2030s, noting that his company is already ahead of DOE’s projected timeline for the technology’s maturation. Eastern data centers present an especially attractive market, he said, because demand is increasing so quickly, and utilities have limited options for carbon-free energy. 

Alas, observers of the data center industry know that while renewable energy is nice to have, cheap energy is even nicer. So I wanted to talk about cost.

Serrurier told me Fervo’s first project will deliver power to NV Energy at a price of $107 per MWh, and Google will pay slightly more than that to the utility. That is twice DOE’s target cost for 2035, yet it still puts the price below the U.S average of 13.1 cents per kilowatt-hour ($131 per MWh) for commercial customers, and competitive with the average Nevada commercial rate of 10.92 cents, according to Energy Information Agency data.

That price is, however, more than the 9.54 cents/kWh that the average commercial customer in Virginia pays for electricity derived primarily from fossil fuels. And Fervo’s price is for drilling in the West, not in the less favorable geology of the East.

But heck, anywhere in the country, 10.7 cents for zero-carbon baseload power — with no waste to be cleaned up and no added healthcare costs from pollution — still sounds compelling. Google may have chosen to be a first mover in order to show leadership and promote a new technology, but it is also locking in a solid deal.

Sage does not make its costs public, but Lance Cook, the company’s chief technical officer, told me their process is competitive with combined cycle gas plants when the cost of fossil gas is above $6 per thousand cubic feet. (According to the Energy Information Agency, the price of gas is currently below that level in most states, though gas prices are famously volatile.)  

An additional benefit, said Cook, is that a geothermal plant could be co-located with a data center, foregoing a grid connection and obviating the need for transmission lines. “We can turn electricity into data,” he told me. “It is much easier to connect data than to wait for a grid connection.” 

Both Cook and Serrurier are confident that geothermal will beat new nuclear  price-wise, which today sounds like a safe bet. Analysts warn that cost continues to be a significant issue for the nuclear industry. Current projections for the cost of electricity from SMRs start at $142/MWh. 

Cook noted that Sage’s technology can also provide long-duration energy storage that isn’t dependent on the heat of the earth. This approach can be used anywhere to turn solar and wind power into baseload energy. Sage’s website claims it can achieve this for less than the cost of batteries or pumped hydro.  

With all this promise, enhanced geothermal has been slow to catch the attention of Virginia utilities and policy-makers. The Virginia Code includes geothermal energy in its definition of renewable energy, but enhanced geothermal is not on the list of energy sources that qualify for the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). 

The General Assembly did pass legislation this year from Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, to include a similarly-named, but quite different, kind of geothermal energy – geothermal heating and cooling systems, also known as ground-source heat pumps – in the RPS. Geothermal heat pumps use the near-constant temperature of the ground just a few feet under our feet to help heat and cool buildings, much as air-source heat pumps do but with greater efficiency. A working group under the auspices of the State Corporation Commission is currently trying to figure out how to award renewable energy certificates (RECs) for a technology that does not produce electricity. 

But drilling down two miles or more and generating electricity at the utility level is quite another thing. Making enhanced geothermal systems eligible for the RPS would be essential to putting the technology on an even footing with other renewables for use in Virginia.

In an email, Surovell told me, “I have read about the Google geothermal project and believe there is significant potential in Virginia.I understand it is different, but we need to do all we can to try to meet the demand for energy created by data centers without upsetting the carbon-free goals we set with the Virginia Clean Energy Act.” He added, “Geothermal also has the potential to create thousands of well-paying trade jobs in drilling and pipefitting in the Commonwealth.”   

I also contacted Dominion Energy Virginia to gauge the utility’s level of interest. Dominion is facing an enormous challenge to meet the explosion of demand from data centers. Its 2023 integrated resource plan (IRP) proposed building new gas plants as early as 2028 and an SMR in 2034, but no geothermal energy. The plan failed to meet the carbon-cutting requirements of Virginia law, so the company ought to see the need to up its game for its 2024 IRP, due in October. 

Dominion’s answer was not encouraging. Aaron Ruby, Dominion’s director of Virginia and offshore wind media, responded with an email that made reference to the working group for geothermal heat pump RECs.

 “We’re certainly looking at the potential for geothermal in Virginia. The SCC is leading a geothermal working group, and there are lots of knowledgeable experts taking a close look. Most of the potential in Virginia appears to be geothermal heat pumps, with maybe less potential for power generation. The process is ongoing, so still more to learn.”

Echoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s rhetoric on energy, he added, “As you know, we’re experiencing an unprecedented growth in power demand. Reliably serving that growth requires an ‘all of the above’ approach, including offshore wind, solar, battery storage, next generation nuclear and natural gas. Emerging technologies like clean hydrogen, longer-duration storage and geothermal could also play a role.”

It’s not a great sign that Dominion ranks geothermal dead last. The company seems quite content to keep adding data centers to its customer base with no plan to meet its climate commitments. 

Data center developers, on the other hand, could vote with their metaphorical feet. If Dominion will not bring geothermal technology to Virginia data centers, maybe the data centers will go to the geothermal technology. Some data center operators say they need to be in Virginia to be close to customers in the East, but the industry’s rapid spread into other states shows many have flexibility. So why should they face public opposition and rising electricity rates in Virginia when they can go to Utah, Nevada or Texas to access low-cost, zero-carbon energy delivered 24/7 from a source that might even be located onsite? 

Especially since, in so doing, they would provide the capital and demand required for enhanced geothermal to achieve DOE’s goals ahead of time, and hasten the day when Dominion presents an IRP with a real zero-carbon plan.  

This article was previously published in the Virginia Mercury on September 10, 2024.

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The Pentagon’s plan to go solar: another chapter in a great American success story

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Aerial view of the Pentagon.
The only real question is why it has taken so long. (DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Brittany A. Chase)

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin can’t run for reelection, so it’s frustrating to see him spending so much time trying to score political points. The latest episode came earlier this month, when according to Fox News, Youngkin sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin questioning the Pentagon’s plan, announced back in January, to install solar panels on the building’s massive roof. Youngkin complained that the plan included no requirements for American-made technology, raising the question “whether American taxpayer dollars will be used to purchase solar equipment from the Chinese Communist Party.” 

A few days later, Fox News reported the Pentagon offered reassurance that it had a “rigorous and extensive oversight process to ensure compliance” with the Buy American Act and other laws requiring domestic content. 

According to this second article, a Youngkin spokesperson quoted the governor as “pleased that Secretary Austin will follow his recommendations to adopt the ‘Made in America’ requirements for procuring Chinese solar panels.”

Younkin’s attempt to snatch victory while still clenched in the jaws of defeat is amusing, but more than a little puzzling. Apparently Younkin is under the impression that solar panels are inherently Chinese.  

Let’s be clear: Solar energy is one of the great American success stories. Americans invented solar photovoltaic technology, nurtured it and led the world in its development for half a century. American ingenuity put solar on the path to becoming today’s low-cost leader for power generation, to the point that it is projected to become the world’s dominant source of electricity by 2050. 

However, as with a lot of American manufacturing, most solar panel production migrated overseas as the technology matured. Starting in 2010, China bet big on renewable energy, investing in solar technology itself and driving down panel prices to the point where most manufacturers in Europe and the U.S. were driven out of business. Only one U.S company remains in the top ten worldwide. 

Chinese companies also likely benefited from the use of forced labor in the production of polysilicon, the raw material for most solar panels. The U.S. banned the importation of solar panels made with forced labor in 2021. 

By then, however, China had developed a mature supply chain and technological know-how to support low-cost production. Today China dominates every aspect of solar manufacturing, with about 80% of the world’s market share. Chinese solar companies have expanded production capacity beyond the ability of world markets to absorb, driving down already-low prices by 42% in 2023. 

Domination of the world market is only half the story, though. China also leads the world in deploying solar at home. China installed as much solar PV capacity in 2022 as the rest of the world combined, and then doubled that in 2023. China also leads the world in offshore wind deployment and electric vehicle sales and dominates production of lithium-ion batteries. 

So the concern that the Chinese are winning the clean energy race is well justified, and Youngkin is not the only American who hates the taste of second place. But our leaders only have two choices: stand around talking trash about the competition, or get in the game. 

That’s what Congress did in passing laws like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that support American investment in solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and other components of a green revolution. More controversially, President Joe Biden also extended Trump-era tariffs on Chinese-made polysilicon solar panels to give American manufacturers a chance to scale up.  

Not everyone supports tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels, given the inflationary impact of trade barriers and the urgent need to deploy as much renewable energy as possible to lower CO2 emissions. Still, the learning rateof solar is expected to continue driving prices lower over the long term. Even with a less-mature, more expensive supply chain, American-made panels are projected to become cheaper than imported panels by 2026.

One year after the IRA’s passage, a Goldman-Sachs analysis found the law was meeting its objectives of driving private sector investment and job creation in the clean-tech sector, including manufacturing. This month, Wood Mackenzie reported that U.S. solar manufacturing capacity increased 71% in the first quarter of 2024, making it the largest quarter of solar manufacturing growth in history. 

The Pentagon is not known for caring about saving money, so maybe it isn’t surprising that it is only now following the example of millions of Americans by putting solar panels on the roof. Defense Department officials say the move is intended to support the resurgence in American manufacturing and to deliver the benefits of increased energy resilience and reliability, including having an uninterrupted power source in case of a cyberattack or a grid outage. 

Low-cost, clean power, resilience and energy security are all part of the great American success story that is solar energy. A note of congratulation, not complaint, would be the better response from Youngkin.

This article first appeared in the Virginia Mercury on June 26, 2024. It has been edited to remove a reference to the Pentagon being located in Virginia because, for reasons worth a digression, it is not.

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Data centers be damned, Virginia can still meet its climate goals

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Virginia's capitol building in Richmond.

Following the General Assembly’s failure either to rein in the explosive growth of power-hungry data centers or to remove obstacles to increasing the supply of renewable energy in Virginia, a lot of people are wondering where we go from here.  

Dominion Energy Virginia’s answer, as described in its 2023 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), is “build more fossil fuels.” The utility is pushing forward plans to build new methane gas generating units in Chesterfield. Dominion argues that although its IRP calls for dramatically increased carbon emissions, it sort of complies with the Virginia Clean Economy Act anyway because the VCEA has an escape clause when reliability is at risk. 

Dominion does not acknowledge that its own actions contribute to the problem. To be fair, though, it’s a huge problem, and even if our utilities were on board with the VCEA’s carbon-cutting agenda, we would need stronger legislative policy than we have now. Rejoining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is an important priority that Democrats are rightly pursuing, but the need for action goes much further. 

Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax, convened meetings the week before last to hear from utilities, industry members, environmental groups and others to get suggestions on ways to reform the VCEA. The interest groups met separately, and members of one group were not allowed to attend other group sessions to hear what those stakeholders had to say. The meetings were closed-door and confidential, with the express purpose of preventing a nosy public from learning anything through Freedom of Information Act requests. 

That secrecy makes me queasy, so I declined the invitation to attend the environmentalists’ session. I’d have cheerfully jettisoned my scruples, though, if I could have been in the utility session to hear what Dominion’s lobbyists were whispering in the senator’s ear. Alas, that was not on offer. 

But Marsden is asking the right questions, and of course, I always have answers, even when no one is asking. In my view, Virginia can stay on track to carbon neutrality by adopting four basic principles: data centers must pay their own way, both literally and carbon-wise; solar must be easy to build and interconnect; utilities must not build new fossil generation for “reliability” before exhausting non-carbon solutions; and efficient buildings must be added to the strategy.

Let’s start with the elephant outgrowing the room.

Data centers are sucking up all the energy

Without action, data centers will soon overtake residential customers to become Dominion’s largest category of customer. Already, they are driving the utility’s decision-making, as we saw from Dominion’s IRP. This year, the General Assembly deferred action to address the energy crisis until it sees the results of a study being undertaken by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). 

It now appears that study won’t be published before the 2025 session convenes, and in fact there does not appear to be a deadline of any kind. Yet we already know enough about data center energy demand and its consequences for everyone else that legislators will be derelict in their duty if they put off all action until 2026.

The General Assembly must choose from three options if it still cares about the energy transition: stop the growth of the data center industry in Virginia, put the onus on data centers to source their own clean energy from the grid, or dramatically increase renewable energy generation and power line construction.  

Lawmakers show no desire to stop all data center growth, but as I’ve urged before, they can and should establish a joint state-local task force to choose appropriate sites for growth based on energy and transmission availability, water resource adequacy and good-neighbor factors, like distance from residential communities and parkland. 

Legislators should also require data centers to meet industry-best standards for energy efficiency, use alternatives to diesel generators for backup power and source carbon-free energy from facilities located on the grid that serves Virginia. They could buy this power either on their own or through a specially-designed utility tariff, as long as it meets all of their needs on a 24/7, hourly basis. In no case should other customers see higher electricity bills for infrastructure that’s only needed because of data centers.

These measures will take time to put in place, yet data center development is proceeding apace while the General Assembly takes its nap. There is no avoiding Virginia’s need for a lot more carbon-free generation, pretty much right away. A couple of small modular nuclear reactors ten years from now aren’t a solution.

Don’t expect climate leadership from Dominion

Dominion’s fossil-heavy IRP marked a sharp break away from the climate report that the company released just months before, which projected solar dominating the grid by 2040. Whether the IRP should be dismissed as political pandering to a conservative governor, or taken in earnest to mean the utility has thrown in the towel on renewable energy, is something of a Rorschach test for Virginia leaders. 

When Dominion releases its 2024 IRP this fall, we may get more clarity about what the company really thinks. More likely, we will still be left guessing. Dominion has a long history of playing to both sides to get what it wants, and what it wants is profit.   

There’s nothing wrong with a company making a profit, of course, as long as the company isn’t also allowed to make the rules it plays by. Asking Dominion’s lobbyists to help make energy policy is like recruiting burglars for a task force on crime prevention. 

Make it easier to build solar

While Virginia counties vie with each other to attract data centers, some are notably less keen on solar farms. Sprawling developments of windowless warehouses that suck power? Yes, they say. Grassy fields lined with rows of solar panels that produce power? No. Such is the horror with which some people view solar that localities have adopted moratoriums, acreage caps and other limits designed to keep projects at bay. The result is that an already-slow process for siting solar projects is getting even slower, more unpredictable and more expensive. 

Lawmakers rejected legislation this year that would have allowed the State Corporation Commission to overrule local permit denials. Yet it seems doubtful whether, in a Dillon Rule state like ours, local governments actually have the authority to enact blanket prohibitions and caps on specific kinds of land use. Legislators may want to ask the attorney general to clarify this point rather than waiting for landowners to challenge in court a locality’s refusal to let them put solar panels on their property. 

If the AG (or a court) rules these barriers illegal, localities would have to go back to evaluating the merits of project applications on a case-by-case basis — hardly a bad result. But it would be wiser and more orderly to pass legislation spelling out under what circumstances a local government may reject a solar project, and what the landowner’s recourse should be. 

New gas plants are the wrong solution for reliability

Though Dominion’s 2023 IRP didn’t win approval from the SCC, Dominion is going ahead with plans to build new methane gas combustion turbines in Chesterfield. Given that these “peaker” plants generate dirty power at a high price, Dominion should not be permitted to build gas combustion turbines if other alternatives are available. 

Which they are. Demand-response programs, advanced grid technologies and batteries charged by renewable energy are superior to gas peakers for reasons of cost, air quality and climate impact. 

Dominion is building some large batteries and testing long-duration battery storage technologies (and of course, Virginia already has the largest pumped storage facility in the world), but our utilities have not even begun to tap the potential of batteries in homes and businesses. Subsidizing the purchase of batteries by homeowners and businesses in exchange for the ability to draw on the batteries for peaking power, as some utilities do, would also build resilience into the grid and address power outages more cheaply than burying lines.

Imagine: If data centers had installed batteries instead of the 11 gigawatts of diesel generators at Loudoun and Fairfax County data centers, Virginia would already have more battery storage capacity than any country in the world.

Let everyone build solar 

The VCEA calls for 35% of its solar target to be satisfied by third-party developers. The purpose of this set-aside is two-fold: to attract more private capital, and to use competition to keep a lid on prices. Unfortunately, the SCC accepted Dominion’s argument that 35% should be read as a ceiling as well as a floor, to the detriment of ratepayers and solar developers. With Dominion now reneging on its solar commitments, it’s more important than ever that private developers be allowed to step in. One bill in the 2024 session would have corrected this problem by explicitly making 35% the minimum. The General Assembly should adopt that measure. 

Fix interconnection

Possibly the most inexplicable failure of the General Assembly this year was failing to pass legislation to resolve the dispute between Dominion and commercial customers over interconnection requirements. The onerous requirements that Dominion adopted in December of 2022  — imposed even in the face of a contrary SCC ruling — have wreaked havoc on plans by local governments to put solar on public buildings and schools. That is fine with Dominion; though the goal of the new requirements was to acquire upgraded distribution infrastructure at no cost to itself, its monopolistic lizard brain is equally satisfied with the result of shutting down competition from small solar companies. 

Legislators should not accept this result, though. The General Assembly adopted net metering years ago because encouraging residents and businesses to go solar is good for the economy and makes communities more resilient. Support for distributed renewable energy is even written into the Virginia Code as official policy. 

And distributed solar is hugely popular. Indeed, the very people who oppose utility-scale solar projects almost inevitably argue that society should maximize rooftop solar instead. In this they are at least half right: If we are really going to meet the energy challenge ahead of us, the very least we can do is milk every kilowatt-hour from sunshine falling on rooftops.

Customers have always paid to interconnect their solar to the utility’s grid. The dispute between Dominion and its customers is about whether Dominion can insist they pay the entire cost of expensive new fiber-optic wire and other cool technology that could make the distribution grid better for everyone, but which any one customer can’t afford. These upgrades could enable not just more solar but also electric vehicle charging in our communities, vehicle-to-grid technology and programs allowing utilities to make use of customers’ battery storage. But if the technology really is that valuable (a determination that should be made by the SCC, not Dominion), then getting it shouldn’t depend on how deep a customer’s pocket is — especially when that customer is a local government and, therefore, effectively, the Virginia taxpayer.

This year’s interconnection bill would have allowed a utility to recover the costs of these grid upgrades from ratepayers, with SCC oversight. Even Dominion would have been better off with the bill, something it would have recognized if its lizard brain weren’t in charge at the time. The General Assembly should pass the bill.

An untapped three gigawatts of energy are waiting off our coast

Dominion’s 2,600 megawatt Virginia offshore wind project is due to begin construction this year, but it is not the only game in town. The Kitty Hawk offshore wind area situated off North Carolina can deliver up to 3,500 megawatts of energy through a cable that will come ashore at Virginia Beach. All that is holding up the project is the lack of a customer.  Offshore wind is more expensive than solar, but we have a lot of power-hungry data centers who could pay a clean energy tariff that would include Kitty Hawk wind. 

Maximize efficiency in buildings 

Possibly the best piece of energy legislation to pass this year was the bill that directs local governments and schools to build to higher efficiency standards and incorporate renewable energy, as appropriate. The language could have been even stronger, but as it is, it will deliver significant cost savings for taxpayers.

In fact, local governments will now build to better standards than most homeowners get for themselves when they buy a house.  That’s because Virginia’s residential building code is pathetically behind the times when it comes to energy efficiency. Home buyers and renters would save more than enough money on utility bills to cover the upfront cost of better housing construction, but builders won’t voluntarily meet higher standards because it reduces profits. That should not be acceptable. 

Legislation passed in 2021 directed the Board of Housing and Community Development to consider amendments that would strengthen the building code. BHCD, which is dominated by builder and real estate interests, simply ignored the law. The matter is now in litigation (and the governor is trying to weaken the code even further), but the General Assembly could resolve the matter by directing BHCD to adopt efficiency measures at least as strong as the national standards set by the International Building Code Council (itself under fire for allowing builder interests to weaken efficiency standards), and to allow local governments to adopt stronger “stretch codes” to help residents save even more money and energy.

Going further, new and renovated buildings should be required to use electricity in place of methane gas, oil or propane for heating, cooling and appliances wherever practicable. Though building electrification increases electricity consumption, electricity is a more efficient technology than burning fossil fuels in the home, so it contributes to lower energy costs for residents and a smaller carbon footprint for the state overall. 

It’s a shame the General Assembly settled for simply not going backwards this year, but it is a good sign that Marsden and others are not waiting for next year to consider ways to get us back on the carbon-cutting wagon. With the climate clock ticking, we have no more time to lose.

A version of this article appeared in the Virginia Mercury on April 29, 2024.

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Now what the heck do we do about data centers?

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Virginia’s 2024 legislative session wrapped up last month without any action to avert the energy crisis that is hurtling towards us. 

Crisis is not too strong a word to describe the unchecked proliferation of power-hungry data centers in Northern Virginia and around the state. Virginia utilities do not have the energy or transmission capacity to handle the enormous increases in energy consumption. Dominion Energy projects a doubling of CO2 and a new fossil fuel buildout. Drinking water sources are imperiled. 

The governor is unfazed. Legislators are going to study the matter. 

 Source: PJM

According to data gathered by regional grid operator PJM, half of the coming surge will occur in parts of Virginia served by Dominion Energy. In its 2023 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), Dominion said it would meet the higher demand by increasing its use of expensive and highly polluting fossil fuels and building new methane gas-fired generating plants. Dominion admitted this will push up carbon emissions at a time when the Virginia Clean Economy Act requires the utility to build renewable energy and cut carbon. 

PJM projects equally huge data center growth in areas served by Virginia electric cooperatives, especially Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC). The cooperatives are exempt from most VCEA requirements, and NOVEC buys the bulk of its power from PJM’s fossil fuel-heavy wholesale market. NOVEC’s latest annual report cites load growth of 12% per year, almost entirely from data centers, but fails to even mention the increase in carbon emissions that will accompany that growth. 

Undeterred by these alarming statistics, the General Assembly put the growth on steroids with a new round of tax breaks in 2023, while beating back any conditions that might have slowed the onslaught. This year it turned away every bill that would have placed limits on the industry or protected ordinary consumers from the inevitable cost increases.  

At the same time, legislators rejected a host of bills that would have enabled more renewable energy development in Virginia and given customers a greater ability to secure their own electricity supply. Together these bills could have brought thousands of megawatts of new solar projects online, lowered demand growth through increased energy efficiency, and prevented the increases in carbon pollution that now appear inevitable.

Legislators did greenlight Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power’s ability to spend their customers’ money on initial development efforts for two nuclear reactors of up to 500 megawatts (MW), one for each utility. 

This is not a fix. It is like scheduling knee surgery for next year when you are having a heart attack today.  

There is, famously, much doubt about whether small modular reactors (SMRs) will prove viable in the coming decades, but there is no doubt whatsoever that the surge in data center development is happening right now. Virginia’s hoped-for nuclear renaissance would be both too little and too late to meet a data center demand that Dominion says grew by 933 MW in 2023 alone. It’s expected to reach almost 20,000 MW by 2034, the year Dominion’s IRP shows its first small nuclear reactor delivering power.

In rejecting every serious measure to address data center demand, General Assembly leaders said they wanted to wait for a study being conducted this year by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). What the General Assembly didn’t do was defer new data center development until the study is complete. Another year has to pass before lawmakers will even consider bills addressing land use, power and water concerns around data centers or make it easier for renewable energy to come online.  

The consequences of inaction could be deadly. It was only a year ago that Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) proposed allowing certain Northern Virginia data centers to violate their air quality permits by running more than 4,000 highly-polluting diesel generators during periods of grid stress. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the public health disaster we’d have had if 4,000 diesel generators kicked into operation last summer when smoke from Canadian wildfires had already made Virginia air quality hazardous.  

DEQ backed off its proposal after a massive public outcry, but the idea is likely still percolating at the agency and might reemerge as an emergency demand-response measure. Even without allowing the generators to provide grid support, more data centers with more diesel generators will worsen air quality with every power outage and every round of equipment testing.  

As I argued at the time, the diesel generator fiasco could have been avoided in the first place if data centers had been equipped with renewable energy microgrids and battery storage.  DEQ’s decision not to require battery storage as the first line of defense against power outages deprived Dominion of a demand-response option that would have been far cleaner and more useful than diesel generators.

One of the bills the General Assembly rejected this year would have prohibited the use of backup diesel generators by data centers that receive state tax subsidies, and would have required greater energy efficiency. It was a missed opportunity that means the problem can only get worse in the coming year. 

The governor, however, could still avert the crisis by imposing a pause in data center development while the JLARC study is underway. He could accomplish this through an executive order directing the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) not to enter a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with any data center operator until the JLARC study is complete and legislators have had the opportunity to act on it. These MOUs are a requirement for data center operators to access Virginia’s generous tax exemptions. Without the tax subsidies, most data center developers would likely choose not to pursue development here.

This is not a novel idea. Last spring, data center reform advocates asked VEDP to include stringent efficiency and siting conditions in MOUs it entered with Amazon Web Services. They never got an answer.  

Down in Georgia, however, legislators just passed a Republican-led bill to suspend that state’s data center tax subsidies for two years pending the results of a study of grid capacity. Legislators expressed concern about Georgia Power’s ability to provide electricity to all the data centers that want to come to the state. And as Republican Sen. John Albers also noted, “The reality is these do not create many jobs. They create big buildings, but they do not create jobs.”  

The Georgia tax subsidies were modeled on the ones Virginia implemented in 2010, which pushed our data center growth into overdrive. Isn’t it interesting that Georgia lawmakers so quickly learned a lesson that Virginia leaders refuse to even acknowledge?

This article was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on April 3, 2024.

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Virginia climate advocates find progress requires more than a Democratic majority

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Virginia's capitol building in Richmond.

Climate advocates felt hopeful last fall when Democrats won control of both the Senate and House with promises to protect the commonwealth’s climate laws, including the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) and the Clean Car Standard. It seemed possible the General Assembly might pass much-needed initiatives modest enough to avoid a veto from a Republican governor.   

Apparently not. Democrats did fend off attacks on the VCEA and Clean Cars, and killed a lot of terrible bills. Through the budget process, they’re trying to require Virginia’s renewed participation in the carbon-cutting Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But Gov. Youngkin won’t even get his shot at most of the priority bills from the environmental community. Of the bills that did pass, most were so watered down as to make their usefulness questionable. A few bills died even when they went unopposed. Some successful bills seem likely to add to Virginia’s energy problems rather than help solve them.

A lot of the blame can be laid at the feet of Dominion Energy, which took a bipartisan drubbing in the 2023 session, but was back this year stronger than ever like a plague that surges when we let our guard down.

But that’s only half the story. As a party, Democrats seemed to have simply lost interest in the fight. Climate change may be an urgent issue in the rest of the world, but in Virginia, a lot of lawmakers seem to think they already checked that box. 

Two steps forward

In the spirit of optimism, let’s start with the positive highlights of the session, though admittedly they were more like flashlight beams than floodlights.

Most consequential for the energy transition is legislation establishing a statewide green bank, a requirement for accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for clean energy projects. The House and Senate versions are different and will go to a conference committee. A show of opposition from Republicans in both chambers could attract a veto, but most governors welcome free money.

Similarly, new legislation directs the Department of Energy to identify federal funding available to further the commonwealth’s energy efficiency goals. 

Another encouraging piece of legislation updates and expands on existing energy efficiency requirements for new and renovated public buildings, a category that would now include schools. Provisions for EV charging capabilities, resilience measures, and onsite renewable energy and storage are included. The measure attracted only a couple of Republican votes, so it may be at risk of a veto.

Another change will bring sales of residential rooftop solar within the consumer protections that apply to other contractors. Virginia’s Board for Contractors will be required to issue regulations requiring relevant disclosures.

The net metering law that supports customer-sited solar will now include provisions for the leasing of solar panels and the use of batteries under a measure that is not expected to draw a veto. A solar facility paired with a battery of equal capacity will be exempt from standby charges, and the customer may use the batteries in demand-response and peak-shaving programs. Though none of the bill’s provisions were controversial, Dominion exacted a price in the form of a line directing the SCC to “make all reasonable efforts to ensure that the net energy metering program does not result in unreasonable cost-shifting to nonparticipating electric utility customers.” Our utilities hope this will undermine the current full retail value for net metered solar when the SCC considers the future of net metering in proceedings later this year and next year. 

A bill to require the Board of Education to develop materials for teaching students about climate change passed mainly along party lines. 

Another bill allows, but does not require, local governments to create their own “local environmental impact funds,” to assist residents and businesses with the purchase of energy efficient lawn care and landscaping equipment, home appliances, HVAC equipment, or micro mobility devices (like electric scooters). Almost all Republicans voted against it, so modest as it is, it may draw a veto.

Both chambers have agreed to request the SCC form a work group to consider a program of on-bill financing for customer energy projects such as renewable energy, storage and energy efficiency improvements. The SCC will also be asked to study performance-based regulation and the impact of competitive service providers. Dominion will now also have to assess the usefulness of various grid enhancing technologies in its Integrated Resource Planning at the SCC.

Efficiency advocates had high hopes for a bipartisan measure they dubbed the SAVE Act to strengthen requirements for Dominion and APCo to achieve energy efficiency savings and to make it easier for efficiency programs to pass SCC scrutiny. Unfortunately, the final legislation does almost nothing, with most improvements pushed off to 2029.  

A bill passed that designates each October 4 as Energy Efficiency Day. (I said these were small victories.)

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Finally, in a rejection of one of the more inane initiatives of the governor’s regulation-gutting agenda, both Houses overwhelmingly passed legislation preventing changes to the building code before the next regular code review cycle. I imagine the governor will have to veto the bill, and Republican legislators will then be caught between party loyalty and a duty to govern intelligently, but any way you look at it, eggs are meeting faces.

Two steps back 

Failure to pass a bill might seem to leave matters where they are, with no winners or losers. Inaction in the face of climate change, however, means we lose time we can’t afford to waste.

Inaction can also have devastating consequences in the here and now. Solar projects on public schools and other commercial properties in Dominion Energy’s territory have been delayed or outright canceled for more than a year due to new rules imposed by Dominion in December of 2022 that raised the cost of connecting these projects to the grid exponentially. Legislation promoted by the solar industry and its customers would have divided responsibility for grid upgrades between the customer and the utility, while giving Dominion the ability to recover costs it incurred. Through its lobbyists’ influence on legislators, Dominion killed the bills not for any compelling reason, but because it could. 

Dominion’s obfuscations and half-truths often work magic when the subject is technical. But of all the votes taken this year on energy bills, this one actually shocks me. No one listening to the committee testimony could have misunderstood the significance of the legislation, affecting dozens of school districts and local governments. In desperation, the solar industry offered amendments that (in my opinion) would have given away the store, to no avail.  

A cross-check of votes and campaign contributions shows the legislation failed due to the votes of committee members who happen to accept large campaign contributions from Dominion. This dynamic tanked a number of other climate and energy bills as well, and underlines why utilities must be barred from making campaign contributions.  

Dominion’s influence also killed a priority bill for the environmental community that would have required the SCC to implement the Commonwealth Energy Policy, slimmed down SCC review of efficiency programs to a single test, increased the percentage of RPS program requirements that Dominion must meet from projects of less than 1 megawatt, and increased the percentage of renewable energy projects reserved for third-party developers. Two other bills that were limited to the Commonwealth Energy Policy provision also failed.

Dominion’s opposition was also enough to kill a bill designed to expand EV charging infrastructure statewide, especially in rural areas, in part by protecting gas station owners who install electric vehicle charging from competition by public utilities. Sheetz and other fuel retailers testified that they want to invest in charging infrastructure but won’t take the risk as long as Dominion can install its own chargers nearby. The reason is that using ratepayer money allows a public utility to undercut private business. Other states have dealt with this by prohibiting utilities from getting into the EV charging business. Here, the retailers asked for 12 miles between themselves and any utility-owned chargers. Dominion opposed the bill, and the fuel retailers lost in subcommittee. A second bill that would have created an EV rural infrastructure fund passed the House but could not get funding in the Senate. 

Bills in both the House and Senate would have required most new local government buildings to include renewable energy infrastructure, especially solar. The House bill, though unopposed, was killed by Democrats in Appropriations because a fiscal impact statement erroneously said it might cost something, in spite of bill language exempting situations where the improvements would not be cost-effective. Then the same committee felt tradition-bound to kill the Senate bill when it came over, although that bill carried no fiscal impact concerns and it was by then clear that killing the House bill had been a mistake. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but also of mindless rules.  

Moving along: all of the bills that would have put limits on the ability of localities to bar solar projects in their jurisdictions failed, as did legislation that would have given solar developers essentially a right to appeal an adverse decision to the SCC.

None of the many bills supporting customer choice in electricity purchasing passed. Legislation to allow localities to regulate or ban gas-powered leaf blowers also failed, as did a bill that would have required Dominion and APCo to reveal how they voted in working groups advising grid operator PJM. This bill passed the House but, like so many others, it died in the heavily pro-utility Senate Commerce and Labor committee.

Two steps sideways?

Community solar, known as shared solar in Virginia, staggered a few steps forward, or maybe just sideways. Readers will recall that the Dominion program authorized in 2020 has proven a success only for low-income customers who don’t have to pay the high minimum bill Dominion secured in the SCC proceeding that followed enactment.  

Trying to make the program work for the general public was the goal of legislation that advanced this year but may or may not help. As passed, the compromise language offers an opportunity to expand the program a little bit and to take the argument about the minimum bill back to the SCC with a different set of parameters.  

In addition to modifying the program in Dominion territory, shared solar now has a modest opening in Appalachian Power territory under a similar bill. Again, the final bill offers far less than advocates hoped, and it lacks even the special provisions for low-income subscribers that make the original Dominion program work at all. Like Dominion, APCo fought the bill, though unlike Dominion, APCo’s rate base has been shrinking, so losing customers to alternative suppliers is a more legitimate concern. 

(At least for now. All APCo needs to do to reverse the decline is to lure a couple of data centers from up north. Data centers are such energy hogs that they would swamp any losses from shared solar, and residents of NoVa would be glad to forgo a few. Or for that matter, a few dozen.) 

Other new measures garnered support from many in the environmental community, but don’t really move the needle. One allows geothermal heat pumps, which reduce a building’s energy demand but don’t generate electricity, to qualify under Virginia’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Another allows an old hydroelectric plant to qualify for the RPS, a move that adds no new renewable energy to the grid but means the electric cooperative that gets the electricity from the plant can now sell the renewable energy certificates to Dominion and APCo.

Lying down and rolling over

In the face of the single greatest threat to Virginia’s — and the nation’s — energy security and climate goals, the General Assembly’s leaders chose to do nothing. In fact, doing nothing was their actual game plan for data centers. A quick death was decreed for legislation requiring data centers to meet energy efficiency and renewable energy procurement requirements as a condition of receiving state tax subsidies. Also killed were a bill that sought to protect other ratepayers from bearing the costs of serving data centers, and more than a dozen bills dealing with siting impacts, water resources, noise abatement, undergrounding of transmission lines and other location-specific issues. 

The excuse for inaction is that the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee is undertaking a study to examine the energy and environmental effects of data centers. However, legislators did not impose a concomitant pause in data center development while the study is ongoing. Instead, for at least another year, Virginia’s leaders decreed that there will be no restraints or conditions on the growth of the industry, even as ever more new data center developments are announced and community opposition increases. 

And falling for the boondoggle

Nuclear energy has always had its true believers at the General Assembly, and the prospect of small modular reactors (SMRs) has excited them again. Many of the same legislators who busied themselves killing climate and energy bills this year insist Virginia needs SMRs to address climate change. They are more than happy to let utilities charge ratepayers today for a nuclear plant tomorrow — or rather, ten years from now, or maybe never if things go as badly here as they did in South Carolina, Georgia and Idaho.

More cautious lawmakers say if Dominion or APCo wants to go all in on an unproven and risky technology like small modular reactors, they should shoulder the expense themselves and only then make the case for selling the power to customers. 

Dominion has achieved a terrific success rate with boondoggles over the years. (See, e.g. its coal plant in Wise County, spending on a North Anna 3 reactor that was never built, and the so-called rate freeze, followed by the also-lucrative legislation undoing the rate freeze.) By now you’d think more legislators would have joined Team Skeptic. But as always, utility donations and lobbyists’ promises are the great memory erasers. So once again, the General Assembly voted to allow ratepayer money to be spent on projects that may never come to fruition. 

This year APCo is in on the act as well. Two bills, one for APCo and the other for Dominion, will allow the utilities to charge ratepayers for initial work on nuclear plants of up to 500 MW. The final language of both bills requires SCC oversight and imposes limits on spending. That is, for now.

Will the real climate champions please step forward?

This round-up might leave readers thinking there aren’t many lawmakers in Richmond who take climate change seriously. Fortunately, this is not the case. Close to two dozen legislators introduced bills targeting stronger measures on energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric vehicles and utility reform. Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, led the pack both in the sheer number of initiatives he introduced and the tenacity with which he pursued them, but he was not alone. 

A few Republicans also supported good energy legislation, and even, in the case of Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, sponsored priority bills like the SAVE Act. With groups like Energy Right and Conservatives for Clean Energy making the case from a conservative perspective, maybe we will see progress towards a bipartisan climate caucus to build on Virginia’s energy transition. 

If that sounds too optimistic, consider that the alternative right now is the near-total inaction that marked this year’s session; we just don’t have time for that.

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In this arms race, the public loses

by
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A year after Dominion Energy suffered its biggest legislative loss in decades, Virginia’s largest utility is back as the most powerful political force in Richmond. Its influence appears to be greater than ever, powered by campaign donations so large that they warp what it means for legislators to serve the public.

As recently as 2017 I could argue that Dominion did not buy legislators. The amount of money changing hands just wasn’t enough. Former Senate Majority Leader and famous friend-of-Dominion Dick Saslaw received $57,500 over the two-year period 2015-2016. Most rank-and-file legislators got $5,000 or less. It was a lot for those days, but if a politician were going to sell their soul to a utility, you’d expect them to demand a higher price.  

What Dominion’s campaign contributions did buy was access for its many lobbyists, which led to relationships of trust, which in turn produced friendly votes. But if a legislator decided to vote against Dominion’s interest, the threat of losing a few thousand dollars in campaign cash would not have been a serious consideration.

It’s harder to make this case today. The amount of money Dominion contributes to its favored politicians has reached staggering heights. According to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), Dominion has given out more than $11 million in campaign contributions so far in the 2023-2024 cycle, with the top five recipients of its largesse — three Democrats, two Republicans — each receiving at least $400,000. (As in the past, Dominion gives almost equally to Democrats and Republicans.) 

VPAP shows the top recipient is House Majority Leader Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, whose campaign has accepted $720,000 from Dominion in this election cycle. Of this, $125,000 came in on January 5, 2024, five days before the start of the current legislative session. Legislators are not permitted to accept donations during session, presumably to avoid (or at any rate, slightly lessen) the odor of undue influence. 

Scott received a total of 12 donations from Dominion between the end of the 2023 legislative session and the opening of the 2024 session, some of them to his campaign, others to the PAC he controls, from which he doles out donations to other Democrats.

I don’t mean to pick on Majority Leader Scott. Or rather, yes, I do, too, but it’s not just him. House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, reports receiving over $590,000 from Dominion since last April. Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, has accepted $465,000 this election cycle. 

In the Senate, the top recipient of Dominion dollars is Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, at $515,000 in 2023. Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, reports $400,000 from the utility in 2023. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, received “only” $280,000 from Dominion, which almost makes one question the strength of the relationship.  

The reason for the skyrocketing inflation in Dominion campaign contributions can be traced to a single source: the formation of the public interest group Clean Virginia in 2018. Wealthy businessman Michael Bills formed Clean Virginia specifically to counter Dominion’s influence. The deal was that Clean Virginia would donate to campaigns only if candidates agreed not to accept money from Dominion or Appalachian Power.

In its first couple of years, this meant Clean Virginia donated $2,500-$5,000 to most qualifying campaigns, which was more than ordinary rank-and-file members would have gotten from Dominion in the old days. Contributions in 2018 topped out at $12,659 for then-Sen. Chap Petersen, a well-known champion of campaign finance reform. Most, but not all, of those agreeing to eschew utility donations were Democrats, though the offer was nonpartisan. Clean Virginia’s contributions to all campaigns in 2018-2019 totaled $373,119. 

Bills probably had no idea he was setting off a campaign finance arms race. Dominion fought back by increasing its donations to legislators who still accepted its money, causing Clean Virginia to do likewise. The nonprofit’s total contributions skyrocketed to more than $7 million over the 2021-22 cycle — but Dominion doled out over $7.6 million. In just the first year of the 2023-24 cycle, Clean Virginia’s donations totaled over $8.5 million, while Dominion’s exceeded $10.6 million.

Clean Virginia has also matched Dominion in the generosity of its donations. Seven Democrats received $400,000 or more in 2023, with freshman Sen. Russet Perry, D-Loudoun, leading the pack at $593,149. Four Republicans also received Clean Virginia backing, in amounts ranging from $5,000 to $155,000.

Where does this end? So far, at least, Dominion seems to be doubling down. In addition to increasing campaign contributions tenfold, Dominion has nearly doubled the ranks of its lobbyists, from 16 in 2017 to 31 today, at a cost of millions of dollars more. Add in the gifts its charitable arm makes to pet charities of legislators it wants to curry favor with, and all this political influence gets very expensive. Clearly, Dominion believes it makes a return on its investment in the form of favorable legislative outcomes, or it wouldn’t be doing this. (And this legislative session seems to be proving it right, as I’ll discuss in my next column.) But how long will Dominion’s shareholders be willing to keep this up?

For his part, Michael Bills seems to have dug in for the long haul. No longer content to serve as just a counterweight to utility money, Clean Virginia has expanded its own team of lobbyists and become an advocate for ratepayer interests at the General Assembly. Its donations swamp those of all other public interest groups, including the environmental groups that have traditionally battled Dominion. But almost all of Clean Virginia’s funding comes from Bills. How long will he keep this up?

Ironically, the more money gets spent by both sides, the harder it may be to get campaign finance reform passed. The arms race may be just too lucrative for all legislators. 

Take what happened this year with Clean Virginia’s priority bill from Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, which would bar campaign contributions from public utilities. Dominion opposed the legislation, as it always does. Nonetheless, the bill passed out of the Privileges and Elections committee on an 8-6 vote. The vote fell along party lines, but more telling was the fact that none of those supporting the bill accept money from Dominion; all those who voted against it do. 

The vote should have meant clear sailing to the Senate floor, but Louise Lucas, the powerful Chair of Senate Finance (and a Democrat), insisted on the bill being re-referred to Finance, where she never put it on the docket. As a result, the rest of the Senate never voted on it. 

Lucas, as noted before, accepted $400,000 from Dominion in 2023, four times as much as she received from the next largest donor, a homebuilder executive. Whether Dominion gave her so much money because of her long history of supporting the utility’s interests, or whether she supports the utility because they give her so much money, ultimately doesn’t matter. 

Almost all of the campaign reform bills introduced this year are now dead, most from the same kind of machinations that killed Roem’s bill. Sadly, it’s not just Dominion allies doing the killing. As the Mercury reported, the House counterpart to Roem’s bill died when not a single one of the 22-member House Privileges and Elections Committee made a motion for or against it, including those on Clean Virginia’s good-guy list. Their inaction may well have been on orders from their leadership, but the result is that the arms race continues.

However our senators and delegates justify their votes, this is bad for democracy. If a legislator can count on an easy $200,000 by taking Dominion money, or a just-as-easy $200,000 by not taking Dominion money, there’s a growing danger of small donors – of small voices  – becoming irrelevant.

And with the failure of election reform legislation this year, I’m afraid it will just get worse.

This post was first published in the Virginia Mercury on February 27, 2024.

Update: A colleague (not associated with Clean Virginia) wrote to complain that I had unfairly equated Dominion, a profit-seeking business entity, with Clean Virginia, a non-profit public interest group, making donations from both equally problematic. I would have said it is obvious that the public interest is not a special interest, but I have now made a memo to myself: if it goes without saying, say it anyway.