Commission ‘accepts’ Dominion’s long-term plan as ‘legally sufficient’ but will require improvements moving forward

Press release from the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Voices 
For immediate release: July 16, 2025 
Contact: Tasha Durrett, SELC, 571-405-1101, tdurrett@selc.org 

 RICHMOND, Va. — Late yesterday, the State Corporation Commission accepted Dominion Energy’s long term power plan — called an integrated resource plan or IRP — as legally sufficient, while noting that such acceptance does not indicate approval of the “magnitude or specifics of Dominion’s future spending plans.”

The commission also directed Dominion to make a number of improvements in its modeling approach moving forward, including that Dominion (1) use at least a 20-year planning horizon, which will ensure the utility accounts for requirements that apply in 2045 that Dominion’s 15-year plan failed to encompass; (2) incorporate at least one scenario where the company’s fossil fuel power plants retire in accordance with statutory requirements; (3) incorporate at least one scenario where Virginia is back in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative; and (4) consider the feasibility of allowing its model to build more batteries and energy storage. The commission’s order did not address several other issues, including the evidence that Dominion is failing to study the health impacts of its plans on environmental justice communities, and that Dominion’s plan unreasonably favored gas projects by limiting cleaner and cheaper alternatives. The order also did not squarely address the critique from staff experts at the commission and others, that excluding the 2045 requirements from the 2024 plan limits the commission’s flexibility and optionality. Ultimately, the commission may have no option but to allow numerous polluting fossil fuel plants to continue operating past the statutory retirement deadline in 2045.   

In April, on behalf of its client, Appalachian Voices, the Southern Environmental Law Center presented the testimony of three experts, ultimately recommending that the ​commission reject Dominion’s plan. Among other significant problems, Dominion’s plans failed to consider the requirement that the utility’s fossil fuel fleet must retire by 2045 under the law, a requirement that permits only narrow exceptions.   

“The old saying goes ‘if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail,’” said Peter Anderson, Director of State Energy Policy with Appalachian Voices. “In this case, Dominion Energy failed to produce a plan to retire its polluting power plants by 2045, as required by law. While the commission directs the company to model in its next IRP at least one scenario where these fossil plants are retired, Virginians will have to wait until October 2026 to see that plan. This could leave the Commonwealth vulnerable to the development of new expensive and polluting infrastructure in the interim.”  

“This was an opportunity to right the ship and get Dominion to set Virginia up for success — or at the very least, to produce meaningful, well-supported plans that comply with the law and show customers how the utility plans to spend their money for the next several years,” said Nate Benforado, Senior Attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The commission ordered some solid improvements to the planning process moving forward, but in the meantime, customers are left with many unanswered questions and members of environmental justice communities are left with even more. Dominion may attempt to proceed with its ‘accepted’ polluting plan, even though the commission has recognized it is the product of a flawed process.”

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The Southern Environmental Law Center is one of the nation’s most powerful defenders of the environment, rooted in the South. With a long track record, SELC takes on the toughest environmental challenges in court, in government, and in our communities to protect our region’s air, water, climate, wildlife, lands, and people. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, the organization has a staff of 200, including more than 100 attorneys, and is headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., with offices in Asheville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Chapel Hill, Charleston, Nashville, Richmond, and Washington, D.C. southernenvironment.org 

Appalachian Voices is a leading nonprofit advocate for a healthy environment and just economy in the Appalachian region, and a driving force in America’s shift from fossil fuels to a clean energy future. appvoices.org