Fauquier Times runs an article published by Virginia Mercury, quoting Kim Jemaine's perspective on Dominion Energy's decision to continue building power plants to meet the utility's energy needs in that area.

Dominion Energy says it will likely need to continue building new fossil fuel and nuclear generation to supply electricity to its Virginia customers over the next 15 years, according to the utility’s most recent long-range plan.

“The priorities of the Company have not changed — to provide reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean power to its customers,” the utility wrote in its 2023 Integrated Resource Plan, a nonbinding 15- to 25-year roadmap required by state law every three years and based on forecasts from regional grid operator PJM Interconnection. “However, this year the long-term projected amount of power needed in the [Dominion] Zone materially increased.”

“This ‘all of the above’ approach ensures we can reliably serve our customers ‘around-the-clock,’ especially on the hottest and coldest days of the year,” said Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia in a news release. “Our plan balances the benefits of renewables with the reliability of ‘on-demand’ power so we can meet the growing needs of our customers.”

Kim Jemaine, director at Advanced Energy United, a trade association that represents renewable energy technology manufacturers, expressed skepticism of Dominion’s reliability concerns.

“Reliability is at the forefront of the VCEA. It pairs investments in solar, wind, existing nuclear, energy efficiency effort and energy storage,” Jemaine said. “Dominion largely ignores these resources and instead the utility focuses on natural gas, despite major price volatility there and advanced nuclear which is not yet commercially viable.”

Read the full article here.