Virginia quantifies grid use for first time
Summary and headline written by AI from the source article. How we work
Virginia’s investor-owned utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power, recently reported data on how much of their distribution systems are being used throughout the year.
Dominion Energy, serving the area around Washington, D.C., found its grid operated at 41% annual utilization but 80% during peak hours. Appalachian Power, serving rural southwest Virginia, reported 14% annual utilization rising to 54% at peak times.
These reports mark the first public quantification of grid usage in the United States and could change how new infrastructure projects are approved. Traditionally, utilities have built capacity to meet peak demand, but now regulators are considering how to maximize the use of existing infrastructure through technologies like battery storage. The Utilize Coalition hopes to see regulators use these metrics to determine when building new infrastructure is truly necessary. However, debates are already emerging about how to interpret the data.
Deploy Action, a clean energy advocacy group, argues that the metrics should be used to evaluate alternatives to costly infrastructure upgrades, while Dominion Energy suggests they should primarily identify constraints. Dominion also divides its data based on whether it includes distributed energy resources like solar and storage, arguing those sources aren’t consistently reliable during peak demand.
Regulators may need three to five years to establish firm metrics, a timeframe Deploy Action considers too long given the rapid growth of data centers in northern Virginia. Dominion’s filings also revealed a significant increase in grid stress in the region, with warnings of potential overload events spiking from eight in 2023 to 172 so far this year.
