Dominion Asks Va. SCC to Approve Chesterfield Gas-Fired Peaker Plan
Dominion Energy plans to build small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see Dominion Plans to Build 1,000-MW Gas Peaker Plant Near Richmond, VA). The Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC) calls for building four 250-megawatt gas-fired power plants (1,000 MW total) that can jump into action during the coldest and hottest days of the year to help supply enough electricity for 250,000 homes—to keep the lights on because solar and wind are not up to the task. Even though these clean gas-fired plants will replace dirty coal-fired plants, anti-fossil fuelers, flying under the banner of Friends of Chesterfield, oppose the project (see Anti-Fossil Fuelers File Appeal Against Chesterfield Power Plant). We don’t see the Friends volunteering to unhook themselves from the grid to prevent blackouts. The time for frittering and placating nutters who will never compromise or meet in the middle is over. Dominion filed a request with the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) for permission to move forward and build the project. Read More “Dominion Asks Va. SCC to Approve Chesterfield Gas-Fired Peaker Plan”
In November 2023, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agreed with a petition from Dominion Energy subsidiary Virginia Electric and Power Company that requested a planned LNG production, storage, and regasification facility in Greensville County, VA, should be exempt from FERC jurisdiction under section 7 of the Natural Gas Act (see 
This is one of those “man bites dog” stories. It wouldn’t be news if a Virginia House of Delegates member who is Republican proposed allocating $15 million of taxpayer money to provide “road extension, grading, and natural gas pipeline extension” for a natural gas power plant and potential data center in Pulaski County, in rural Southwest Virginia. But it definitely IS news when a Democrat proposes it! 
The Pittsylvania County Planning Commission voted on Jan. 7 to recommend against granting Virginia-based Balico permission to proceed with a $8.85 billion project to build a data center complex. Last October, Balico applied to rezone more than 2,200 acres for a proposed campus that would include its own massive on-site gas-fired power plant complex using Marcellus/Utica molecules from the Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
It’s always a red-letter day here at MDN HQ when we happen across a new pipeline project in the Marcellus/Utica region. Today is one of those days! Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE), filed a new project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in December to beef up three existing compressor stations in Centre County, Clinton County, and Franklin County in Pennsylvania, and one existing compressor station in Loudoun County, Virginia, with the aim of flowing more Marcellus molecules to the Washington, D.C. area. 
Dominion Energy plans to build small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see 
Diversified Energy, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (also assets in other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. Earlier today, the company announced another deal to buy more assets in the Appalachian region. 
The dataheads (sounds better than geeks or eggheads) at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an interesting analysis on Friday detailing which states export the most and import the most electricity. In 2023, Pennsylvania exported 83.4 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity to other states in the PJM electric grid. That’s roughly 26% of all the electric power the Keystone State produced. Meanwhile, for the first time in years (maybe in forever?) Virginia became the #1 state importing electricity, importing 50.1 million MWh. Virginia is also in PJM, so it’s not a stretch to suggest Pennsylvania’s electric exports went (largely) to Virginia. 
In November, MDN told you that Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation had settled a class action lawsuit originally brought by several West Virginia landowners (see 
One month ago, we brought you the news that Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation had settled a class action lawsuit originally brought by several West Virginia landowners (see 
In 2021, as he was running for Governor in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin pledged that if he won, he would remove the state from the onerous carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired power plants called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Youngkin kept his promise, although it took longer than he had hoped. Unfortunately, the left-leaning (very partisan) Association of Energy Conservation Professionals sued. The judge in the case just ruled the way Youngkin removed the state from RGGI was unlawful and that the state must (for now) remain in the high-tax, onerous organization. 
Antis did their best, but their best wasn’t good enough. Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) victoriously began to flow up to 2 Bcf/d of Marcellus/Utica molecules in June (see 
Dominion Energy plans to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see 
Two weeks ago, MDN brought you the news that Christmas had come early with the announcement of a plan to build the country’s largest natural gas-fired power plant at a proposed data center site in Pittsylvania County, Virginia (see 
Dominion Energy plans to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see