The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) mandates that Dominion Energy, the State’s big electric utility, rapidly shift its power generation to wind and solar. Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) provides dramatic evidence that this shift does not work, making blackouts inevitable. Making it work would be fantastically expensive with the average customer paying over $40,000 for batteries by 2030.
First let’s look at how it does not work. There is a nifty little graphic showing this on page 62 of the IRP which is here. https://cdn-dominionenergy-prd-001.azureedge.net/-/media/content/about/our-company/irp/pdfs/2024-irp-w_o-appendices.pdf?rev=5b28b014e4814135bb2fcec470dcc92b
The graphic summarizes Dominion’s VCEA compliance plan. It is a vertical bar showing the installed mix of generating capacity in 2030. The vertical scale is megawatts (MW) and the height of the bar is the projected maximum summer power demand for that year which is about 33,000 MW.
The bar is divided into different colored segments for each generator type such as solar, wind, gas, nuclear, etc. The height of each segment is the amount of installed capacity at that time in MW.
Dominion actually flags solar pointing out that it makes up 23% of the available capacity. They also point out that solar, wind and batteries together make up 34% of capacity. Note that the battery segment is very small and batteries are not generators. The bar also includes a little bit of imported power making installed capacity less than peak demand.
The problem is obvious. Peak summer demand typically occurs after 4 pm when there is no solar generation. Moreover it is often caused by a stagnant high pressure system called a Bermuda high with very low winds so there is no wind power either. Plus these highs are regional in scale so the neighbors may have nothing to sell.
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