An energy-industry megamerger, concerns about regional data center development and rising electric bills took center stage Thursday as Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi brought her multicity “Energy Costs Listening Tour” to Roanoke.
Hashmi’s series was sparked by the proposed merger of electric utility giants Dominion Energy, based in Richmond, and NextEra Energy, based in Florida, and what the deal could mean “for utility bills, grid reliability and communities across the commonwealth,” according to the listening tour’s website.
The $67 billion deal would create the largest regulated electric utility business in the world. State regulators are scheduled to hold hearings on the proposal in October and November.
[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
“This is a big money takeover for Virginia. That’s it,” the Rev. David Denham, pastor of Roanoke’s Tree of Life church, said on Thursday.
Denham was one of nearly two dozen audience members who stepped up to speak during the hour-and-a-half event at Roanoke’s Harrison Museum of African American Culture.
Audience questions followed comments from the stage by Hashmi; Roanoke Mayor Joe Cobb; Del. Lily Franklin, D-Montgomery County; Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke; Botetourt County resident Kathryn Hatam, who was introduced by Hashmi as representing “community voices;” and Victoria Higgins, Virginia director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
Dominion and NextEra say their combination would bring greater operational efficiency, faster development of solar power and battery storage, hundreds of new jobs and millions of dollars invested in Virginia’s workforce and supply chain.
It would mean four years of $10 average monthly bill credits for residents, two years of bill credits for businesses other than large data centers and hundreds of new jobs, the companies say.
The deal would create “a stronger Dominion Energy Virginia, still local, still regulated in Virginia, with the scale, low-cost platform and capabilities of NextEra Energy behind it,” NextEra President, Chairman and CEO John Ketchum said in a recent news release.
Critics are concerned about electric bills continuing to rise despite the credits, potential job losses once the companies’ five-year commitment to maintain their employee headcount in Virginia expires and a larger company wielding greater influence in politics.
“I worry that with an out-of-state power company, quite possibly the largest in the country, that will take away any sort of negotiating power that we have when we are mistreated by our power generators and distributors,” said Alex Smith of Roanoke, who described having billing difficulties as a previous Dominion customer in Richmond.
More than 70 people sat in the audience at Thursday’s event in Roanoke, with additional attendees, staff members for speakers and members of the media standing in the room.
A group of protesters gathered outside the museum before the event and then joined the audience holding signs with messages such as “Stop NextEra’s power grab” and “Stop Godzilla in its tracks.”
Nobody at Thursday’s event spoke in favor of the Dominion-NextEra merger.
Some voiced their opposition to data centers, such as the project recently confirmed for the Wood Haven Technology Park in Roanoke County, and tied data centers to the Dominion-NextEra deal, which would give NextEra access to Dominion’s pipeline of large electricity customers in Virginia.
“The community says no to data centers, no to AI Ready Roanoke and no to the NextEra merger,” Hatam said.
AI Ready Roanoke is a regional initiative to study whether to create an artificial intelligence-focused business and education hub centered around Google’s planned data center complex in Botetourt County.
Cobb, speaking from the stage, praised economic development in the Roanoke region, such as the growth of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC and the recent announcement that Austrian skin care products manufacturer Ringana would establish a factory in the city, creating 435 jobs.
Cobb said that such economic development requires “a clear and comprehensive digital and technological infrastructure” but noted that “we find ourselves in a tension regarding the role of data centers in our communities, examining the potential benefits as well as the concerning drawbacks.”
Franklin and Rasoul said that they would support a legislative moratorium on new data centers if one is put forward during next year’s General Assembly.
“If I have an opportunity to vote on a moratorium, you know it’s a yes,” Rasoul said.
Earlier this month, Hashmi held similar “listening tour” events in Loudoun County, Norfolk, Richmond and Charlottesville.
She said Thursday that she hopes to bring the concerns of Virginians to Richmond and that residents’ comments will be compiled into a report for legislators and the state regulators who will evaluate the merger proposal.
“The proposed merger is not simply a corporate deal to be hammered out in boardrooms. It’s a decision that’s going to affect the electric bills, the jobs, the communities, the energy future of millions of Virginians,” she said.
She said that while the regulatory standard for whether the merger is approved centers on ensuring that it doesn’t harm customers, she believes it should also show a public benefit.
As evidenced by a show of hands, the overwhelming majority of attendees at Roanoke’s event were customers of Appalachian Power, not Dominion Energy.
But Higgins said that the merger would impact the entire multistate electric grid of which both Dominion and APCo are a part. For example, the cost of large transmission projects undertaken by one company on the grid could be spread across ratepayers on the entire grid, she said.
Higgins said that the additional bill credits and other benefits that Dominion and NextEra have touted would not help customers of APCo or Virginia’s electric cooperatives and won’t address larger issues such as corporate political influence.
“There’s nothing that’s been offered there to offset the permanent economic and political risk, and there’s really no ‘undo’ button for this merger,” Higgins said.
In November, the State Corporation Commission will hold a series of hearings in Richmond, first to receive public comments and then separately to hear evidence and testimony from participants in the regulatory case. It also plans to hold two in-person hearings in October outside Richmond, one each in Fairfax and Newport News, to receive more public comments.
The SCC already has received more than 900 written comments and will continue to accept comments through Nov. 9.
Furthermore, a number of parties have filed to formally intervene, becoming active participants who can submit evidence, cross-examine witnesses or appeal the SCC’s final decision to the Supreme Court of Virginia. Among them is Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, whose intervention marks the first time a Virginia governor has taken such action in an SCC case.
Some lawmakers and advocacy groups have called for a special session of the General Assembly to extend the 180-day window that the SCC has to review the merger application. Thus far, a special session has yet to materialize.
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, along with Appalachian Voices, Clean Virginia and other groups, have asked the SCC to restart the 180-day clock. They argue that “supplemental” information that Dominion and NextEra filed on Sept. 14 in fact changes the proposal so significantly that it requires a brand-new review period.
