Dominion Energy plans to bring 21.1 GW of new clean energy capacity online over the next 15 years, while continuing to rely on gas-fired resources to “bridge the gap” as demand continues to grow at unprecedented levels, the company said in the 2024 Integrated Resource Plan it filed on Tuesday with the Virginia State Corporation Commission and the North Carolina Utilities Commission.
By 2039, Dominion said it plans to deploy about 3.4 GW of new offshore wind in addition to the 2.6 GW already in development, about 12 GW of new solar, and about 4.5 GW of new battery storage. The company also plans to deploy five small modular nuclear reactors starting in the mid 2030s, for a total of 1,340 MW.
Dominion announced today that the company has entered a memorandum of understanding with Amazon to explore commercial and financing structures in the interest of advancing small modular reactor development in Virginia, “while also mitigating potential cost and development risks for customers and capital providers.”
Gas-fired resources will continue to provide 20% of generation, “facilitating the transition to clean energy over the next decade and longer by reliably generating power when customers need it the most” while the company works on deploying the more nascent technologies of small modular reactors and long duration energy storage, the IRP said.
In all four of its generation portfolio models, Dominion detailed plans to bring online 5,934 MW of natural gas-fired generation between 2030 and 2036.
“The IRP is based on a forecast developed by PJM, which projects that power demand will continue growing at unprecedented levels in the coming decades. Power demand within the company's delivery zone is forecasted to grow 5.5% annually for the next decade and to double by 2039,” Dominion said in a release.
The Southern Environmental Law Center and its client Appalachian Voices issued a statement criticizing the IRP for not modeling renewables investments “at the level needed to move us to a zero-carbon grid and instead [relying] on retaining the Company’s current fossil fuel fleet through 2039.”
“While the General Assembly required Dominion to conduct a stakeholder process ahead of its IRP filing this year, the Company disregarded a key concern raised by participants – the need to show a plan that modeled meeting the retirement requirements spelled out in the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Dominion showed no such plan,” said Rachel James, a staff attorney at SELC.
In Dominion’s release, Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine said that an “all of the above” approach is necessary to handle “the largest growth in power demand since the years following World War II.”
“No single energy source, grid solution or energy efficiency program will reliably serve the growing needs of our customers,” Baine said.
