Workers install solar panels at Huguenot High School in Richmond. (Sun Tribe Solar)
The landmark law Virginia passed in 2020 to decarbonize the electric grid is being tested, as energy demand from data centers surges, prompting discussions about how to meet the law’s goal.
On Monday, Nov. 18, Sen. David Marsden, D-Fairfax, is hosting a summit in Richmond to talk about that law, the Virginia Clean Economy Act, and a wide range of related topics including economic considerations, challenges limiting local approvals for solar projects, energy efficiency, delivering energy through transmission lines and small modular nuclear reactors.
The summit will be the culmination of discussions involving Marsden’s office that he said would be exempt from Freedom of Information Act laws under a working papers exception, in order to allow for more candid conceptual discussions.
“We’re not touching the act,” said Marsden, in a previous phone interview with the Mercury. “The act itself is fine. What are the circumstances around it that have changed in four years and how do we adjust to that demand?”
Up for discussion: SMRs, solar and local land use considerations
The Virginia Clean Economy Act, a policy passed under a Democratic trifecta control of state government, requires Virginia’s two largest utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Company, to decarbonize the grid by 2045 and 2050, respectively.
But the growing demand from data centers is expected to increase the electricity needs from Dominion’s current peak amount of about 22,000 megawatts to about 45,000 by 2039.
According to filings at the State Corporation commission, Appalachian Power had a 2023 peak load of about 3,200 megawatts. The utility is currently planning to add about 7,700 megawatts for large load customers, about half of which are data centers.
Small modular reactors, which are smaller nuclear reactors able to produce about 300 megawatts, have gained appeal because of their ability to provide baseload power without generating carbon emissions. Though one is yet to be used commercially in the United States, Amazon announced recently it would help pay for Dominion to develop one.
As SMRs potentially become viable, Marsden’s summit attendees will discuss other possible power-producing solutions, including solar energy development. Some participants have previously advocated for altering the local approval process for solar projects by giving state officials the authority to override local denials, by creating a regional siting board or developing a state-level task force to support localities and regions by offering an opinion on technical guidance.
“We do not want to diminish local opinion, and we do not want to fail in the task of accelerating permanent approvals,” said Jay Ford, Virginia Policy Manager at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a group that wants to see less emissions trickle down into the Bay.
“There’s no doubt about it that if we’re going to hit our targets, we’ve got to accelerate utility scale solar being built out, but we have to do it in a way that doesn’t cause blowback and grind the whole thing to a halt,” Ford said in an interview after presenting the opinion idea to the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation on Thursday. “We’re trying to strike that balance right now.”
A major concern of localities and the farming community faced with Chesapeake Bay cleanup requirements and challenging economics: the loss of farmland to solar.
But Greg Habeeb, a lobbyist on behalf of the Solar Energy Industries Association, Advanced Energy United and several solar developers shared numbers, told legislators at the CEUR meeting that only about 2,400, or 3%, of the 97,000 acres of farmland lost annually on average has been due to solar energy development, which is in line with numbers from the Department of Environmental Quality.
“Renewable energy is not the problem,” Habeeb said. “Other land use decisions are the problem.”
There’s the concern over the loss of forestland, said Kyle Shreeve, a lobbyist speaking on behalf of the Virginia Forestry Association, during the CEUR meeting, and “removing local land use authority makes conservation efforts much more difficult.”
“We think the regional planning outline, as Mr. Ford has presented, definitely has potential and could be a potential vehicle to work through some of these issues,” Shreeve said.
Other topics of discussion at the summit — such as increasing energy efficiency to build homes and businesses that require less energy, increasing distributed generation on the ground and more comprehensive planning for transmission lines to deliver power across broader regions — have been proposed by environmental and energy groups.
Natural gas
The use of natural gas isn’t on the summit’s agenda, but it is, but often brought up in discussions of the VCEA.
As a result of the projected electricity demand, Dominion wants to build a natural gas plant and is planning for more, alongside a suite of renewable energy projects, to provide dispatchable reliable power to maintain the grid when solar and wind can’t.
Environmental and ratepayer groups see that as running counter to VCEA, since natural gas facilities are required to come offline under the law unless there’s a concern over grid reliability. If that concern is present, Dominion and Appalachian Power can appeal to the State Corporation Commission regulators to keep a carbon-emitting source, like its planned natural gas plant, online.
“I see no reason for us to give up on that very important state mandated goal,” said Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, one of the lead sponsors of the VCEA. “We can, and as far as I’m concerned, will meet that goal. I have confidence in Virginia and Virginians. When we set a goal we meet our goal.”
Although natural gas is not listed as a discussion topic for the summit, Glenn Davis, a former Republican legislator and now director of Virginia Energy appointed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, said in an interview a key consideration is “getting rid of the banning of natural gas as we look forward.”
“The specific policies will be coming out over the next 45 days or so from the administration,” said Davis.
Dominion has acknowledged the challenge of being able to provide power through solar, given recent analysis that gave it a lower effective load carrying capacity, meaning solar produces less power than previously thought. The utility is relying on the provision in the VCEA that allows for carbon emitting sources to stay online if need be.
“We’re quite confident that we will make that case, but it will be up to the State Corporation Commission to decide that,“ Dominion Energy chair, president and CEO Bob Blue said in a recent interview with reporters about its long-term plan, called an integrated resource plan, which increases natural gas usage.
“This is a company that complies with the law. We are doing that in this integrated resource plan. We’re going to do that moving forward,” Blue said.
Appalachian Power, in a statement, said it “will continue to work with regulators, developers, localities and other interested parties to meet the Virginia Clean Economy Act requirements.”
“We are committed to meeting those requirements without compromising the reliability, affordability, or security of the electric power system,” said spokesperson George Porter.
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