On January 7, 2022, the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) approved the second phase of Dominion Energy Virginia’s plan for electric distribution grid transformation projects.[1] The proposed projects focus on grid reliability and are designed to accommodate the expected increase in distributed energy resources (DER) caused by policy developments like the Virginia Clean Economy Act of 2020 and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 2222. The plan’s second phase includes $666.5 million in capital spending for 2022 and 2023.

The SCC approved many of the proposed projects subject to certain requirements such as cost caps. In particular, the SCC approved the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) proposal, which will deploy 1.1 million smart meters and associated infrastructure. Deploying the AMI plan will cost $198.3 million. The commission previously rejected the proposal due to the plan’s high cost and speculative nature. The commission’s approval was partly due to a new proposal for system-wide implementation of time-varying rates and an active experimental time-of-use rate, which requires AMI. In addition to the AMI proposal, the SCC approved investments in security, customer education, and telecommunications. The commission also directed Dominion to take certain specific actions in implementing the approved projects and filing its next petition, including performing a robust cost-benefit analysis and incorporating a more thorough projection of DER penetrations and anticipated reliability impacts.

[1] https://www.scc.virginia.gov/newsreleases/release/SCC-Approves-DEV-Grid-Transformation-Plan