Bill requires study of state’s electric utility infrastructure (copy) (copy) (copy)
Lawmakers this session introduced companion bills to study how the state’s energy infrastructure can be more efficient. These bills come amid growing bipartisan concerns about rising energy costs, greenhouse gas emissions and the use of clean energy.
Del. Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, introduced House Bill 114, which passed the House unanimously but was continued to next year in the Senate. Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico County, introduced the companion Senate Bill 267, which passed both chambers by unanimous block vote.
Ware’s bill called for the research to be presented to the General Assembly no later than July 1, 2027, and VanValkenburg's bill had a due date of Dec. 1.
Both required the State Corporation Commission and the Department of Energy to analyze the state’s electric utility infrastructure to identify cost-saving opportunities that improve or preserve electric system reliability as an alternative, or supplement, to greenfield infrastructure projects that start from scratch.
“One of the ways we can keep costs down for ratepayers is by maximizing the grid,” VanValkenburg said in a floor statement for the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. “Advanced power lines which utilize carbon cores, and are widely deployed by other parts of the world, can double transmission transfer.”
VanValkenburg says that these are faster to build and cost less than constructing new transmission lines.
Legislation is a starting point, but environmentalist critiques wording
Mary Finley-Brook, an environmental professor and adviser at the University of Richmond, sees the bill as a starting point, but is wary of some of its abstract wording. She sees some of its language as providing wiggle room for corporations, the DOE and other entities to argue more in their favor.
Finley-Brook said words in the bill, like reliability, are coded words that leave openings for the defense of more traditional energy, and ignore scientific evidence. She used the example of the Virginia Reliability Project and the gas-powered Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center, which will be under construction this year and operational by 2029.
“That is what I wrote three chapters of my textbook about and it's very well shown that gas is neither clean nor friendly to the climate,” Finley-Brook said.
Those fossil fuels are already getting more expensive, with the exportation of liquefied natural gas, but also because of the Iran War, according to Finley-Brook. That is another caution about the claim of reliability, she said.
The cost of electricity has outpaced inflation and increased by 42% since 2019, while the overall Consumer Price Index has only risen by 29%, according to Brookings, a research and policy powerhouse based in Washington.
The bill also calls for analysis of capacity uprates for “high-performance conductors,” which could be an expensive path leading to the increase of artificial intelligence data centers, said Finley-Brook. This could be a trade-off between expense and performance. The bill could leave the door open for rapid growth.
Part of the analysis will include a review of “potential electric generation unit upgrades” in existing facilities, which Finley-Brook believes may cause or reinforce environmental racism within communities. She said companies like Dominion Energy are able to push the boundaries.
“There was environmental injustice in the siting because we didn't really have strong regulations,” Finley-Brook said. “If you say we're going to do an upgrade or expansion at an existing place … you can be reinforcing environmental racism and other types of unfair harm for households that have already been exposed to a high environmental burden.”
Dominion Energy has previously stated its commitment to environmental justice as it moves forward with energy projects, and stated that communities should have a meaningful voice in its planning and development process.
Finley-Brook believes that energy corporations and entities are not regulated with full transparency or accountability. She pointed to the expansion of data centers and their use of the grid, but without a clear picture of what subsidies they receive or how it falls on state taxpayers.
“It tends to be a pretty pro-business stance that's really concerned about critical infrastructure reliability, but both of those are words that can be used by utilities to push the boundaries between what they're doing for profit and for Virginia,” Finley-Brook said.
Jake Waldman, a law student at Virginia Commonwealth University, sees rising utility costs as an issue and believes that the state should be moving toward greener energy.
“It was pretty cold this winter,” Waldman said. “Because we had the heater on, the cost went up, and I think that just overall with climate change getting worse and worse each year, the problems will probably only get worse.”
Waldman does not see the AI data centers as prioritizing the interest of Virginians, and believes data centers should not be subsidized by taxpayers.
“They are for-profit corporations, we shouldn't be subsidizing them with our tax dollars, and we definitely shouldn't give up household energy consumption in favor of data centers,” Waldman said
The governor has until April 13 to amend, veto or sign legislation.
Capital News Service is a program of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Richard T. Robertson School of Communication. Students in the program provide state government coverage for a variety of media outlets in Virginia.
