Latest news with #APCo
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Appalachian Power's effort to undermine rooftop solar meets stiff opposition
(Photo by) Virginia's investor-owned utilities thought 2025 would be the year they put an end to net metering – and with it, rooftop solar installers' modest competition with their monopoly.. The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) removed many barriers that residents and businesses installing solar panels under the state's net metering law had faced, but it also called for the State Corporation Commission to reevaluate the program, beginning right about now. Not surprisingly, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power are seizing this opportunity to push for changes that would undermine the economic calculus supporting customer-owned solar. Since at least 2007, Virginia law has required that customers of Dominion and APCo who have solar panels on their property be credited for surplus electricity they supply to the grid at the same retail rate they pay for electricity. The credit is applied against the cost of the electricity the customer draws from the grid at times when the panels aren't generating, reducing what they owe on their electric bill. But now that they have the chance, both utilities have filed proposals to end net metering. Both essentially propose to charge new solar customers the full retail rate for the electricity they draw from the grid (with Dominion using a more complicated half-hour 'netting'), but compensate them for electricity fed to the grid only at the utility's 'avoided cost,' or what it pays to buy electricity from other generators. By law, existing customers and new low-income customers with solar would be unaffected. Appalachian Power Company requests reduction to pay rate for net-metering solar customers APCo calculates avoided cost as the wholesale cost of energy and capacity, plus transmission and ancillary services, for a total of less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Thus, a homeowner with solar panels would now pay the full retail rate of about 17 cents/kWh for electricity drawn from the grid, while being credited at less than one-third that amount for electricity put back on the grid. Dominion's approach instead pegs avoided cost to what it pays for solar generation and associated renewable energy certificates (RECs) bought from certain small producers under power purchase agreements, an average of about 9.5 cents/kWh. Dominion's residential rate currently averages about 14 cents/kWh, but would go up to more than 16 cents if its latest rate increase request is granted. The VCEA gave APCo the first swing at the piñata. APCo filed its proposal in September, and the SCC will hold an evidentiary hearing on May 20. Dominion only filed its petition last week, and no hearing date has been set yet. Not surprisingly, APCo's proposal generated fierce opposition from advocates and solar installers. They point out that it's hard enough to make the economics of home solar work with net metering at the retail rate; slashing the compensation for electricity returned to the grid by more than one-third, as Dominion proposes, or two-thirds, as APCo wants, would make solar a losing proposition for most homeowners. Maybe economies of scale and other factors would allow the market for commercial solar to survive under Dominion's program, though Dominion's insistence on confiscating customers' RECs won't make anyone happy. If solar owners definitely lose under APCo's plan, advocates say other ratepayers don't necessarily win. A homeowner's surplus generation travels only the short distance to the nearest neighbor, lessening the need for the utility to generate and transmit power to meet the neighbor's demand. Since the utility charges that neighbor the regular retail rate for the electricity, without having to bring it from somewhere else, the utility saves on transmission costs. On top of that, the surplus solar comes in during the day, when demand is typically higher than at night and electricity is more costly, making solar more valuable to the utility. Plus, it is clean and renewable, and the customer bears all the cost and risk of the investment. Utilities do not share this rosy view. By their way of thinking, solar customers use the grid as free energy storage and backup power, without paying their fair share of grid costs. Not only does this deprive the utility of revenue, but those grid costs now have to be spread out among the remaining customers. This, they say, creates a cost shift from solar owners to everyone else. More than a decade ago, Virginia took tentative steps towards resolving the dispute, with the Department of Environmental Quality setting up a stakeholder group to work towards a 'value of solar' analysis. The process was never completed — the utilities walked away from the table when it appeared the results weren't going to be what they wanted, and the group's work product did not include numeric values or policy recommendations. Virginia is hardly alone in navigating these clashing narratives. Other states and regulators have arrived at very different conclusions as to the 'correct' value of distributed solar to utilities, ratepayers, and society as a whole. States like Maryland kept net metering after a value of solar analysis concluded the benefits outweighed the costs. On the other hand, California famously ended its net metering program in 2022 when solar comprised almost 20% of electricity generated in the state and created a mid-day surplus without enough storage to absorb it; at the time, 45% of that solar was distributed. That same year, however, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed an unpopular bill that would have phased out net metering in the state. The experience of other states, combined with an abundance of research and analysis conducted over the years, gives the SCC a lot to work with as it considers the fate of net metering for APCo's customers this year, and later for Dominion's. Will Virginia's residential solar market survive the coming year? Countering the arguments of the utility's hired witnesses, solar industry and environmental organizations have weighed in on the APCo docket with testimony from experts with nationwide experience. The experts pointed out a range of errors and omissions in the utility's work product. They also presented their own benefit-cost analyses demonstrating a value for distributed solar in excess of the retail price of electricity, using tests often applied to energy efficiency and demand-response programs. Perhaps even more significantly, SCC staff also filed an analysis that found many of the same problems with APCo's proposal, including failures to comply with statutory requirements. The staff report did not include a quantitative analysis, but it urged the importance of considering benefits that APCo had ignored. Like the intervenors, staff recommended the commission reject APCo's plan and retain its net metering program as it is, at least for now. Although the staff report would seem likely to carry weight with the commissioners, it's never easy to predict what the SCC will do in any case before it. But in Virginia, unlike California, distributed solar makes up vanishingly little of total electric generation. Even taking the utilities' arguments at face value, it seems foolish to upend this small but important market to remedy a perceived harm that is, at least for now, more theoretical than real. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
APCo Rate Reduction Act passes in Virginia General Assembly
RICHMOND, Va. (WJHL) — The APCo Rate Reduction Act passed in the Virginia General Assembly Saturday evening and now heads to Gov. Youngkin's desk. HB 2621 passed on a vote of 98-0 in the House of Delegates and 39-0 in the Senate. It aims to lower Southwest Virginia customers' bills, according to primary sponsor Delegate Jason Ballard (R-Giles). 'This legislation will provide the most significant electric bill relief to APCo customers in years,' Ballard said in a release. 'For too long, my constituents – and those throughout APCo territory – have suffered through unreasonably high electric bills that put people in the unwinnable position between paying their electric bill or putting food on the table.' Weber City Police Chief commends 'quick actions' of officers who were assaulted during traffic stop Ballard along with Delegates Terry Kilgore (R-Scott) and Israel O'Quinn (R-Washington) advocated for the legislation while it moved through sub-committees and eased through the Commonwealth's General Assembly. 'I give my sincere thanks to the entire Southwest Delegation of General Assembly members who helped get this bill across the finish line,' said Ballard. 'HB 2621 is the only bill that provides meaningful financial relief for our constituents who are APCo customers.' The legislation addressed several items that Ballard said would lower Appalachian Power Company customers' bills and help them keep payments in good standing—including a securitization, a six-month moratorium on interest and late fees and a nine-month moratorium on disconnect and reconnect fees. Additionally, the bill outlines there will be no rate increases during winter months (Nov.-Feb.). APCo must also propose seasonal rates meant to minimize the impact of cold months and high electricity usage. Under the legislation, APCo will be directed to propose alternatives to current billing practices that are designed to lessen the burden of high monthly bills during peak seasons. 'This was a heavy lift during a short legislative session,' Ballard added. 'However, doing nothing was not an option. I appreciate every constituent who shared their story with my office – this is how to get things done in Richmond.' 'While this is a significant first step, there is more work to be done and we will continue working with all stakeholders to provide relief to customers and hold APCO accountable to the Commonwealth and their ratepayers,' Sen. Todd Pillion said in a post on social media. Virginia Department of Health offering free well test kits for flood victims Finally, HB 2621 directs the State Corporation Commission to consider public input during all rate cases. The bill will now go to Gov. Youngkin's desk to be reviewed, to which he released the following statement: To the General Assembly members who dedicated their time and energy this legislative session, making the tremendous sacrifice of being away from their families, careers, and personal lives to serve the Commonwealth—thank you. I especially want to thank Delegate Baxter Ennis and Delegate Danny Marshall for their service to Virginia. This General Assembly is sending me a multitude of bills, including a budget, and over the next 30 days I will go to work to review and take action on those bills and budget. We will have much to address at the reconvene session, but I remain grateful for the hard work of our General Assembly members and their staffs. Governor Glenn Youngkin News Channel 11 has reached out to the offices of Delegates Israel O'Quinn and Terry Kilgore for comment on the bill's passing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
We interrupt this legislative session for some good news
The Biden administration's goal to have half of all U.S. vehicles be electric by 2030, will require increased production of minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt used in batteries. (Photo by Sarah Vogelsong/Virginia Mercury) After two decades following Virginia's General Assembly, I understand why people say the legislative process is like sausage-making, both being things it's better not to watch. And while you can count on the sausage factories to feed every little morsel into the grinder, the legislature often leaves the healthiest ingredients rotting on the capitol's marble floors. But not always! Sometimes Richmond's sausage factory comes out with products truly worth savoring. So, after my recent assessments of the sorry state of solar and data center legislation, I want to take a moment to celebrate a few of the good bills that are making their way through the House and Senate, often with bipartisan support. Since I'm an environment and energy advocate, these bills all relate to those topics at least loosely. With any luck, all of these should soon be on their way to the governor's desk. Let's start with legislation reforming the way Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power do their resource planning. No, don't stop reading! This is really more interesting than it sounds! Let me give you an example. One of the reasons customers of APCo are complaining about sky-high power bills is that the public utility commission over in West Virginia approved expensive upgrades to APCO's coal plants while insisting that the utility run those plants at least 69% of the time, even though both actions increase costs that customers have to pay. Because those coal plants serve Virginia customers as well, that means higher bills here too. But you won't find out from APCo's filings how much of its electricity even comes from coal. The integrated resource plans (IRPs) the utility filed with the SCC never revealed that information. Two years ago, APCo even got the Virginia General Assembly to excuse it from having to file the plans altogether. Dominion Energy's IRPs have caused their share of frustration, too, to the point where an SCC hearing examiner recommended rejection of the company's 2023 plan, and the commission ordered a supplement to the 2024 plan even before it was filed. The Commission on Electric Utility Regulation, a legislative body that is also more interesting than it sounds, set out this year to raise the bar for what has to go into an IRP. The result is HB2413 from Del. Candi Munyon-King, D-Dumfries, and SB1021 from Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax. The legislation doesn't just restore the IRP requirement for APCo and demand greater transparency from both utilities, it also makes it possible for other stakeholders to review and question the assumptions that go into the utilities' planning. The result is that regulators and legislators will finally have the information they need to ensure the utilities are acting in the public interest and not just their own. With data centers already pushing up energy costs, the need for this reform is urgent. As of this writing, both bills have passed their respective chambers, the House version with strong bipartisan support. Another pair of bills that are faring well deal with energy storage. As battery prices drop and innovations multiply, storage has become one of the brightest of the new energy technologies. Batteries are now the method of choice for filling in gaps in solar and wind production and allowing utilities to meet peaks in demand more precisely, cleanly and at less expense than burning fossil fuel in short spurts. And whether it's batteries or other kinds of storage (gravity-based, hydrogen, or thermal), the technology is also critical to the buildout of new nuclear plants, should that occur. Small modular reactors will have to run close to 100% of the time to make their capital cost tolerable, so utilities need the ability to store surplus electricity at night, when demand is low. SB1394 from Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Richmond, and HB2537 from Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, increase the amount of short-duration energy storage Dominion and APCo must develop and add new amounts for long-duration storage, defined as 10 hours or more. The requirement is technology-neutral, and the timelines are generous. There are also provisions for working groups to develop financial incentives, model ordinances, fire prevention strategies and demonstration projects. SB1394 passed the Senate unanimously. HB2537 passed the House 54-44. Speaking of promising new technologies popular on both the right and the left, a bill to add electric generation using geothermal energy to the list of resources qualifying for Virginia's renewable portfolio standard passed the Senate unanimously. So-called 'enhanced geothermal systems' use technology derived from oil and gas fracking methods, perhaps accounting for it earning a place of favor among the otherwise old-school technologies favored by the Trump Administration. This clean energy is taking off in western states, providing power to data centers owned by Google and Meta. SB1316 from Jeremy McPike, D-Woodbridge, passed the Senate unanimously and was reported out of a House Labor and Commerce subcommittee with only one dissenting vote. Electric vehicles are not yet a bipartisan priority, but awareness is growing that tourists in EVs need to be able to charge their cars and won't travel to areas where they can't. This likely explains why a bill from Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, setting up an EV rural infrastructure program to support private investment in charging stations, passed the House with the support of several rural Republicans. This is at least the third year that Sullivan has introduced legislation like this, only to get shot down each year in the money committees. Third time's a charm? Finally, I've written a lot about the pernicious influence of campaign donations on the legislative process, especially when the donations come from public utilities seeking favors from the legislators they give money to. My own periodic bouts of outrage haven't moved the needle; in fact, the sums of money at stake have only grown. Every year bills to reform campaign finance get introduced, and every year they get killed, often due to backroom machinations that keep any individual legislator from having to take blame. This year, as in past years, all efforts to limit campaign contributions failed. Regrettably, this includes HB2607 from Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, which would have barred contributions to candidates from Dominion and APCo, but did not even get a hearing in a (Democratic-majority) subcommittee of Labor and Commerce. Remarkably, however, the General Assembly is finally poised to prohibit legislators from using campaign funds for personal spending. The practice is so obviously outrageous that it pains me to say it has actually been legal in Virginia for as long as I can remember. Year after year, legislation to end it has hit a dead end. This year, however, HB2165 from Joshua Cole, D-Fredericksburg, passed the House unanimously. The Senate companion, SB1002 from Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, passed 36-4. This leaves only four members of the General Assembly – Republican Sens. Bill DeSteph of Virginia Beach, Christopher Head of Roanoke, Tammy Mulchi of Mecklenburg and Mark Peake of Lynchburg – willing to stand up for the ignoble tradition of using campaign war chests as personal piggy banks. A couple of other campaign finance bills are also worth noting here. HB2140 from Paul Krizek, D-Alexandria, requires creation of an easily-searchable campaign finance information portal. I don't think anyone should kid themselves that transparency will cure the evil of money in politics, since corporations tend to give money to members of both parties. Still, I'll celebrate anything that heads in the right direction. In addition to Krizek's bill, that includes SJ255 from Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, which tasks the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) with a study of Virginia's campaign finance laws. The scope of the study seems disappointingly narrow, so it may not result in recommendations for the kind of reform we need to limit the influence of utilities, corporations and other special interests. And of course, studies are a notorious way to kick a can down the road. But next year Virginia will have a new governor, and new members in the House of Delegates. So who knows? Maybe real campaign finance reform will happen in 2026, giving us news we can really celebrate. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
