Dive Brief:
- The new Dominion Virginia Power (DVP) Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) calls for $9.5 billion in capital expenditures through 2020, including a $2.4 billion upgrade to its distribution system, a $3.6 billion investment in its transmission system, and $700 million for new solar generation, PV Magazine reports.
- The plan, if approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission (VSCC), targets $3.5 billion in spending for new generation and environmental improvements. Improvements include undergrounding vulnerable distribution lines.
- The $1.9 billion per year for new capacity and for the Virginia and northeastern North Carolina grid increases Dominion's annual $1.8 billion from last year, and doesn't include a Dominion subsidary's $5 billion investment in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
Dive Insight:
PV Magazine reports that while the overall increase in expenditures is slight, DVP's planned investments are broader in scope for where and how to deliver upgrades and improvements.
DVP's commitment to solar investments is an “incremental progress toward IRP review of the full range of resources that utilities in Virginia should evaluate,” Pace Energy and Climate Center Executive Director Karl Rabago told Utility Dive.
The VSCC used its IRP review to move the utility another step forward toward recognizing a fuller range of resources in the next long-term plan, Rabago said. The commission’s December 2015 filing instructed DVP to include in its next IRP "a more detailed analysis of market alternatives, especially third-party purchases that may provide long-term price stability...[including, but] not limited to, wind and solar resources.”
DVP was also instructed to “examine wind and solar purchases...(including [those purchases at] prices available through long-term purchase power agreements)…[and to compare] purchasing power from wind and solar resources from third-party vendors versus self-build options…”
The Atlantic Coast pipeline project has been touted is vital to comply with the Clean Power Plan and is designed to move natural gas supplies from West Virginia to North Carolina.
