Case over proposed Chesterfield gas plant begins at SCC

After the State Corporation Commission heard nearly 100 public comments earlier this month mostly opposing the peaker gas plant the state’s biggest utility wants to operate in Chesterfield, arguments for the Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center started Tuesday.

It’s up to the SCC to decide if the project is needed and reasonable for ratepayers to cover. The plant planned by Dominion Energy – dubbed the Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC) – would only run about 37% of the time but the project has neighbors sparring over if it should be built at all. 

Dominion touts the plant as critical to ensuring the grid does not collapse on high-use days amid skyrocketing energy demands, in part due to the growth of data centers in the commonwealth.

“Dispatchable generation resources are an integral component of this solution, and in the near term, this means new gas required resources, including the CERC,” said Joseph Reid, an attorney for Dominion. “It is clear that no single resource will comprehensively address this question, but CERC is an important installment that will meet the need for cold start peaking capacity, and it can be operational within the next four years.”

The 1000 megawatt CERC is slated to be built on the site of a former coal plant just north of the Dutch Gap conservation area, near neighborhoods made up mostly of Hispanic and Black people. The coal plant fully retired in 2018 after burning for over 70 years. There are still two gas units that run year-round on site generating about 420MW of power. Considering these facts, opponents say the planned plant would constitute environmental discrimination.

“The company’s own documents reflect that the gas plant’s operation would emit at least eight other regulated pollutants, and healthcare costs associated with exposure to these pollutants are not included in the company’s economic analysis,” said Rachel James, an attorney for Appalachian Voices and other organizations in the case against the plant. “The Commission cannot ensure that no group of people bears a disproportionate share of any negative environmental consequence of the gas plants construction and operation based on this record.”

The CERC is the first of six proposed gas plants that Dominion says are needed in order to meet the growing energy demands of the commonwealth and the PJM grid at large, which encompasses multiple East Coast states. The CERC will have the ability to power up in a matter of minutes to help ease grid strain on the hottest and coldest days of the year when power demand is highest. 

Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently spoke at the multi-state technical conference for PJM, the regional grid provider. He said that relying solely on wind and solar power would not be enough to meet the state’s needs, and added he has been working to expand Virginia’s energy profile into an “all of the above” plan. He has repeatedly joined other governors in petitioning PJM to speed up their process to bring more power projects onto the grid to increase reliability.

“We need energy and power strategies that deliver and being ignored by PJM just flat doesn’t work. … We are working on legislation that will allow Virginia to reassess if Virginia can continue to be a part of PJM,” Youngkin said.

Residents in the area who oppose the plant told the SCC that under the terms of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, the multi-billion dollar project would have to be retired by 2045. They also pointed out that coal ash only recently stopped being released in the community and they don’t want additional pollutants being emitted in the air. They also said they believe the energy needs can be met with solar, wind, and battery storage.

“The commission should also be concerned about the long term implications of approving this project, regardless of how the mission rules here, the VCEA still presumptively requires fossil fuels to retire by 2045 approving a fossil plant of CERC size will make it that much harder to retire the company’s carbon emitting fleet without significant reliability concerns,”  Claire Horan, an attorney representing the Sierra Club, said.

Multiple public hearings for the plant and its air permit application have drawn hundreds of community members and support from some lawmakers, who said they are concerned about being sure the lights will turn on when they flip the switch each day. State Sen. Glen Sturtevant, Del. Mark Earley, and Del. Kim Taylor signed on to testimony for the case in favor of the new plant.

“Our citizens, employers, hospitals, schools, and critical infrastructure require a stable, reliable, and affordable supply of electricity. While renewable sources are an important part of our energy portfolio, they are by their very nature intermittent. During periods of peak demand, severe weather, or low renewable output, natural gas generation is indispensable to maintaining grid stability and avoiding blackouts,” their testimony read.

Conversely, 20 Democratic state legislators signed a letter against the CERC project. Among those on the list are Del. Rip Sullivan of Fairfax, who helped craft the VCEA and Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond, who is running for lieutenant governor.

“This proposed gas-powered plant undermines Virginia’s commitments to transition to a clean and renewable economy by 2050, ignores the Commonwealth’s policy on environmental justice, and endangers the public health and safety of environmental and fence-line communities,” the letter read.

Dominion is currently building the largest offshore wind project in the county, which is slated to come online in 2026. They also run large utility-scale solar projects. Despite those clean energy investments, the company insists gas must be part of the energy profile to ensure reliability.

The SCC commissioners are expected to make a decision on whether the project can move forward in the coming months.

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