Virginia regulators began to hear testimony Tuesday in a case that will decide how much residents pay for electricity in the coming years. Dominion Energy has requested rate increases that could raise customers’ bills by $21 a month over the next two years.
Tuesday’s State Corporation Commission hearing drew widespread interest from residents, business owners, data center operators, and lawmakers across the state. More than 2,700 pages of public comment filed ahead of the hearing, according to SCC Chair Samuel Towell. Another 38 people signed up to comment via phone during the proceedings. The hearing combined comments on two requests: an increase to the base rate and to the fuel factor.
Bottom line: people were concerned about higher electric bills and largely felt that large energy users — like data centers — should be asked to shoulder the burden.
Several speakers expressed concerns with affording higher utility bills as the price of other household costs such as groceries rise as well.
“I know that you need to have increases, but this is really hard on senior citizens,” wrote Deborah Moore of Newport News in a public comment submitted to the SCC. “It is getting more difficult to make ends meet these days.”
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Gilbert Bland, president and CEO of the Urban League of Hampton Roads, echoed similar concerns.
“Advocating for fair, equitable access to essential services, including reliable and affordable energy, is central to our mission,” Bland said. “Energy costs can disproportionately burden working families, seniors and small business owners, making predictability and fairness and rates especially important.”
In its application for the rate hike, Dominion cited the highest levels of demand growth in decades. That growth is driven primarily by the influx of data centers, which are projected to double energy demand in the next 10 years if the industry continues to grow unrestrained.
The company’s requests “reflect the investments and operating costs necessary to deliver on its obligation and mission to provide safe, reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean energy to customers,” Dominion wrote in its initial filing. “The financial health of the utility and the need for a constructive regulatory environment are crucial to enabling the necessary and cost-effective investments that will benefit the Company’s customers in the long run.”
Specifically, Dominion requested an increase of $8.51 per month for base rates starting in January 2026 for residential customers, and another $2 per month starting in January 2027. This would be the first increase of the base rate, or the base cost of generating power, since 1992. Dominion also is proposing a roughly $10.92 monthly fuel rate increase for residential customers.
A projected bill analysis showed a steep increase in what customers could pay over the next decade. For a household using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month, a Virginia resident paid about $143. When taking to account load growth over the next 15-20 years, the same household would pay $215.62 at the end of 2035.
Dominion has also proposed a new rate class for high-energy users like data centers, which would “ensure these customers continue to pay the full cost of their service and other customers are protected from stranded costs.” Under the proposal, high-energy users would be required to make a 14-year commitment to pay for their requested power, even in cases where they may use less.
Data center developers expressed concerns about the request. Judith Judson, senior vice president of energy for North America at Vantage Data Centers, said the SCC’s decision on the proposal will determine whether Virginia remains “competitive as a business destination for digital infrastructure investment.” She said, in the past, Dominion Energy has missed connection deadlines for its projects with Vantage, so holding developers to long-term commitments when Dominion has no enforceable obligations is unfair.
This makes the proposal “extremely problematic and one-sided,” Judson said.
“Not only does this change in Dominion’s business model obligate Vantage’s investors to be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars, but makes it incredibly difficult to secure the financing necessary for our project unless Dominion commits to delivering power to energize our sites on the dates shown in the contract, investors need assurance that the utility will deliver power on time.”
Politicians also commented on the request. Del. Michael Webert, R-Warrenton, cited a law passed last session that calls for the SCC to determine if energy providers are using appropriate customer classes, including for businesses such as data centers. Republican Terry Kilgore, minority leader of Virginia House of Delegates, submitted a comment that said Dominion proposed a reasonable starting point on the question of minimum generation charges for data centers.
“I support creating a pro-economic development environment for data centers, but I also believe there should be no cost shifting to other customers,” Kilgore wrote.
A gaggle of attorneys representing various power, corporate, consumer-protection and environment agencies gathered in Richmond to speak. Attendees included, among others, Virginia Committee for Fair Utility Rates, the Sierra Club, Amazon Data Services, Appalachian Voices, Piedmont Environmental Council, Data Center Coalition, Google, Walmart, the US Department of Defense, Clean Virginia, Microsoft and the Virginia Poverty Law Center.
After public comment wrapped up, the hearing transitioned into the evidentiary portion of the hearing. That’s when legal counsel representing the involved parties present expert testimony, offer supporting exhibits, raise objections, file briefs and present legal arguments about the case.
Towell said the hearing is likely to continue over several days, but he could not definitively say how long proceedings may take. There is no specific deadline for when the SCC will make a decision.
Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com