Dominion Virginia Power seeks approval for conservation program
Bruce Parker / Times-Dispatch
The Dominion Virginia Power building at 7th and E. Cary St. in downtown Richmond.
Published: July 29, 2009
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Dominion Virginia Power is seeking approval to roll out an energyconservation plan that the utility says would save customers about $1.2 billion over 15 years.
The company filed requests with the State Corporation Commission yesterday to implement the plan, which would include offering customers incentives to participate in 11 conservation programs such as installing energyefficient lighting and upgrading to more efficient heating systems.
The utility, which first announced some details of the plan last year, wants the SCC's approval to start offering the programs by April 1.
"This is a significant step toward meeting Virginia's energy-conservation goal in a way that will deliver real and measurable benefits," said Paul D. Koonce, Dominion Virginia Power's CEO.
Virginia lawmakers have set a goal of reducing the state's electricity use in 2022 by 10 percent form 2006 levels.
The company also is seeking approval for a 12th initiative, which would be the key part of the conservation plan and would generate about 75 percent of the estimated savings. That effort calls for installation, by 2013, of about 2.4 million "smart meters" at each of the homes and businesses the utility serves.
The installation cost is about $600 million, but Koonce said the technology will more than pay for itself by reducing fuel consumption. The devices would let the company lower the voltage on distribution circuits by 5 percent during nonpeak hours without affecting customers' service, the company said.
In June, Dominion Virginia Power started a pilot project using smart meters in Charlottesville and Albemarle County that will involve 46,500 devices.
The cost of the programs will add 95 cents to the monthly bill of the typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
That cost, officials said, was part of a package of rate increases that the company submitted to the SCC in March. At the time, the company said the net effect of those rate increases would raise the average customer's monthly bill by 6.9 percent. Yesterday, officials said the cumulative impact would be a 6.3 percent increase.
The utility also said the Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that the conservation programs would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by more than 15 million tons by 2024, the equivalent of removing about 165,000 cars from the road.
Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or
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Reader Reactions
Anon…Conservation of mass and energy: matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed they can only change form…. A. Einstein
Fred,
The problem with Solar and wind is that it (with current technology) be used for Peak demand. Solar produces when the sun shines.. and wind.. when the wind blows. Those may/may not happen during a peak power period. Unfortunately, we can’t easily “store” electricity.. Maybe someday battery/storage technology will allow that to be more cost effective? Right now.. it is pretty much produced as it is used.. So wind and solar can contribute to the power grid.. but can’t be counted on to produce X% of power.. they just aren’t reliable enough. That is what makes them a difficult technology to manage…and why it has been difficult to incorporate into the country’s power grid.
“When the last tree is cut, when the last fish is caught, when the last river runs dry - only then will man realize that he can’t eat money.“ - Anonymous
America runs on low cost, abundant energy and it is a major contributor to our high standard of living. ANY ATTEMPT to raise the cost of energy will have a profound and negative impact on our quality of life. Natural gas and nuclear are the cleanest answers to our growing electricity needs, however as some posters have pointed out, the U.S. has huge coal reserves and it MUST be included in future plans for producing base load electricity. Currently, and in the next 10-20 years, solar and wind may be available for peak electricity production, but the costs are very high and both have reliablity problems. As far as smart meters and the “smart grid” are concerned….looks like a boondogle in the making!
Seems like “the fox guarding the hen house” to me.
This should be rubber-stamped as usual by the SCC. I wonder if they even look at the paper while signing it or do they keep staring at the monitor while signing off on the side of their desk.
Lance,
I agree that natural gas is non-renewable and should be used sparingly. But given a choice between more dirty coal and cleaner natural gas as a bridge to renewables, I side with Boone Pickens.
The first time I heard of natural gas peaking plants was 35 years ago. Back then, natural gas was very expensive and using it only a couple days a year made perfect sense.
With recent discoveries of another 100 years worth of gas supply in Wyoming, using natural gas peaking plants is a waste of capacity. I’m not advocating building more, just using the ones we’ve got more intelligently.
Re: natral gas turbines for peak power. What nonsense…..when utilities in the Clinton era began putting many, many of these huge turbines in the price of gas steadily climbed. It isn’t falling because of new discoveries but low summer usage and a dramatically lower use of natural gas by industry who is flat on their backsides due to the economy. If we foster “clean gas” to generate electricity we will be over time dramatically raising the price of another form of energy that we use to heat our homes and water.
We have the most abundant supply of coal on the planet and the technology to burn it very cleanly exists. The old power plant at Dutch Gap for Vepco (yes, I know it’s Dominion but I remember it and think of it as the hated VEPCo) has been so extensively modified and reduced so many pollutants it’s amazing and it’s an old plant.
Let’s go with coal and nuclear and get on with it and about 10% wind and solar where applicable.
Leave Natural gas alone…that in the end is the same equation as oil…an essentially non renewable perishable resource.
We all understand the idea of using less power at peak times but who is the power company serving, us or themselves? Let’s get the cart and the horse in the right order, please.
Lance
This is the same way people save gas. Just double the price and you will have less usage. That is the root of the article to me. Look what it did for the auto industry and the economy. Vepco could make it so expensive it would be cheaper to provide your own energy with windmills and solar power. They would loose their monopoly and then try to pass a law to keep it. Rates were never lowered from when the cost of fuel went up. Fuel prices dropped buy Vepco kept the increase.
one.. I think that the way people would save is using fewer MWHR.. so.. it might cost more/mwhr.. but you use less of them. Reducing need for “peak” output (the most expensive sources of electricity generation).. will ultimately save people in VA money because these costs are passed through directly to the customer (us).. that is how it works. If the company has to use it’s most costly generation.. or even buy electricity during peak hours.. it will cost a lot more per mwhr… which we the consumer will pay.
Ultimately.. we win if the power companies don’t have to increase their capacity with new plants which are very expensive and always seem to be more so because of litigation fighting new plants.
One,
This article leaves a lot to be desired. I have a follow-up question for almost every paragraph.
The back story here is that all utilities has natural gas-powered peaking plants that only operate a couple hundred hours each year. If they could find another solution to their peak demand needs, those plants could be freed up to operate 24/7/365.
Because natural gas is much cleaner than coal and because the cost of natural gas is falling precipitously due of new discoveries here in the USA, this would be a very good thing.
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