Virginia SCC approves a Demand Response Program for Dominion

The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) has approved Dominion Energy request for five new "demand-side" management programs intended to be elements in the utility’s efforts to maintain the stability of the grid as they decarbonize and to reduce the cost on customers.

from SCC Dominion Energy VA typical bill

According to a report in the appendix of the SCC hearing, these new programs expands on the existing pilot program that allowed 10,000 customers. This was called an off-peak plan and  was originally approved in 2021. It used a “Time Of Use” rate that charged 10,000 participating customers more for electricity during peak hours while saving them money during times when people don’t traditionally use energy. That program saved customers on average $17 a year. In addition, customers used 9.4% less energy during peak times in the summer and 2.9% less during the winter. 

However in the report, what were termed “high-baseline” customers, or those who must reduce energy during peak times to save money, saw their bills increase. Meanwhile, “structural winners,” or those who simply benefit from the rate changes without having to alter their habits, experienced all the savings. As the Attorney General’s Office pointed out in a letter to the SCC, that may prove to be an unsustainable design- encouraging only structural winners to participate while those customers with the greatest potential for load shifting abstain, to avoid higher costs.  With growing electric bills, people could also learn to adjust their power usage to save money.

According to  Dominion Energy’s web site they will expand program to reward participating business customers for reducing their electricity use during times when our power grid is experiencing heavier than normal use.

“Our Non-Residential Distributed Generation Program partners with interested customers to switch their power source from the Dominion grid to a backup generator for a limited number of hours each year. In return, the customer receives a monthly incentive payment based on their reduced power consumption.”

The program will provide participating customers a monthly incentive to allow their on-site backup generators to be remotely activated by PowerSecure during load curtailment events (a "control event") for up to a total of 120 hours per year. The monthly incentive is based on the amount of load curtailed, the amount of fuel consumed during load curtailment events, and/or tests requested by Dominion Energy Virginia during the month.

Monthly Participation Payment = Load Curtailment Capability Payment + Fuel Payment + Variable Operations & Maintenance Adder

It seems that slowly, but surely Dominion is moving towards having large industrial flat demand users (data centers) becomes dispatchable micro grids to protect the main PJM grid. Microgrids are self-contained electrical networks that draw from on-site energy sources. These supplement grid power to keep the data center online in the case of a shortfall of power to prevent a grid outage. Diesel backup generators  have been the norm in Virginia. However, diesel is the dirtiest source of power for a micro grid and frankly after this summer of awful air I want better. As the backup power for the data centers becomes the emergency dispatchable power for our region we must have cleaner power. We can no longer allow diesel generators to be the backup power for data centers. This dispatchable power must be natural gas, fuel cells, or other energy storage combined with on-site storage.