VA — Power Infrastructure Updated 2026-07-17

Virginia

PJM Natural Gas Wind Storage Data Center PPAs Queue Bottlenecks Transmission Constraints

1) Grid operator and market structure

  • RTO/ISO: Virginia is in the PJM Interconnection footprint, so generation interconnection, transmission expansion, capacity-market impacts, and regional reliability planning for Virginia data-center load are handled through PJM processes as well as Virginia utility/SCC proceedings. PJM, accessed 2026-06-10
  • Retail market structure: Virginia remains largely vertically regulated for retail electricity service, while allowing limited competitive-service-provider activity under SCC licensure and registration rules. EIA, accessed 2026-06-10; Virginia SCC, accessed 2026-07-17
  • Utility ownership development: NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy announced a proposed all-stock combination on May 18 and filed to combine on July 15. The companies now target closing in the second half of 2027, subject to shareholder approval and review by the Virginia SCC, FERC, NRC, and other regulators; the proposal includes $2.25 billion in customer bill credits across Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina after closing. Dominion Energy, 2026-05-18; Dominion Energy, 2026-07-15

2) Interconnection queue (status, wait times, reforms, data center relevance)

  • Generation queues vs. data-center load: PJM’s public interconnection queue primarily concerns generation and storage resources, while large data centers enter utility load-interconnection and delivery-point processes that historically were less transparent to the public. PJM, accessed 2026-06-10
  • PJM generation-interconnection reform remains relevant but incomplete for data centers: PJM’s FERC-approved reform moved generator interconnection from a first-come, first-served process to a first-ready, first-served cluster process, but those reforms do not themselves reveal or resolve Dominion’s large-load connection queue. PJM, accessed 2026-06-10
  • Dominion’s PJM load-forecast documentation: Dominion told PJM that its Virginia service area contains the world’s largest data-center market, with about 4 GW of coincident data-center peak in 2025, and that its July 2025 contract-capacity data totaled 47 GW across engineering, mid-term, and near-term contract categories. Dominion Energy, 2026-01-06
  • Dominion forecast vs. request distinction: Dominion’s PJM documentation forecast 16.6 GW of data-center demand by 2046 despite the much larger contract-capacity total, showing that utility forecasts discount the raw request/contract pipeline rather than assuming every request becomes load. Dominion Energy, 2026-01-06
  • Dominion large-load queue proceeding: Dominion filed its proposed large-load connection queue process with the SCC in Case No. PUR-2026-00011 on February 2, 2026 after the Commission ordered the company to formalize its process. On May 12, the SCC made determinations on the proposed queue standards and ordered a compliance filing, while leaving the proposed flexibility-based fast-track mechanism open for additional briefing due June 30; the proceeding was not fully resolved as of July 17. Virginia SCC filing, 2026-02-02; Virginia SCC interim order, 2026-05-12
  • Queue scale in the SCC filing: Virginia Business reported that Dominion’s February 2026 filing described about 70,000 MW of large-load/data-center-related requests, including roughly 25,000 MW with projected connection dates through 2031 and about 45,000 MW without set connection dates. Virginia Business, 2026-02-17
  • Updated contracted-capacity total: Dominion’s May 1 investor presentation reported approximately 51.0 GW of contracted data-center capacity as of March 2026, up about 2.5 GW from December 2025. The total comprised 10.4 GW under electric-service agreements, 11.1 GW under construction letters of authorization, and 29.5 GW under substation-engineering letters; it is therefore not equivalent to actual operating load or to the larger raw request total. Dominion Energy, 2026-05-01
  • Utility service-delay law: HB1151/SB423 became Chapter 745 and, beginning July 1, 2027, allow an electric distributor to delay service when necessary to maintain grid reliability, avoid generation or transmission capacity constraints, or comply with SCC or FERC load-interconnection rules. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-13
  • New load-forecasting proceeding: HB892 became Chapter 1077 and directs the SCC to open a proceeding by March 1, 2027 to investigate electric load-forecasting practices by Dominion, Appalachian Power, and electric distribution cooperatives. Virginia LIS, 2026-05-26
  • FERC-wide large-load review: On June 18, FERC issued Section 206 show-cause orders to PJM and the five other jurisdictional RTO/ISOs, requiring each within 60 days to justify its large-load tariff or propose reforms addressing application and study procedures, transparency and cost shifting, co-location and behind-the-meter configurations, flexible service, and proximate generation. FERC also required 30-day informational reports on generation adequacy. FERC, 2026-06-18
  • PJM backstop procurement proposal: On June 30, PJM stakeholders approved a two-part, one-time reliability backstop procurement proposal under which load-serving entities—and potentially data centers—could request capacity, with large loads billed for the procurement and an average-cost cap of $555/MW-day. The PJM board still had to select and file a proposal at FERC; stakeholders did not reach consensus on the separate connect-and-manage framework. Utility Dive, 2026-07-02

3) Ratepayer protection (tariffs, cost allocation, orders)

  • GS-5 large-load class: In Dominion’s 2025 biennial review, the SCC created a new GS-5 class for customers demanding 25 MW or more, effective January 1, 2027. Virginia SCC, 2025-11-25
  • Minimum-charge protections: The SCC required certain large-load customers to pay at least 85% of contracted transmission/distribution demand and 60% of generation demand, with minimum contract obligations and collateral provisions designed to reduce stranded-cost risk for other customers. Virginia SCC, 2025-11-25; Virginia SCC, 2026-02-24
  • Large-load cost allocation law: HB1393/SB253 became Chapters 1123/1124 and require Dominion, in rate cases after January 1, 2027 and before July 1, 2033, to propose allocating certain capacity-procurement and distribution-infrastructure costs to a class for customers with at least 25 MW demand and at least 75% average annual load factor, subject to specified non-data-storage industrial exceptions. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-02
  • Standby/supplementary-service tariff: HB1393/SB253 also require Dominion’s first post-July 1, 2026 rate case to propose a revised supplementary, maintenance, and standby-service tariff for customers with power plants, effective January 1, 2028 if approved by the SCC. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-02
  • Demand flexibility law: HB284/SB371 became Chapters 377/378 and require Dominion and Appalachian Power to file SCC petitions by January 15, 2027 for voluntary demand-flexibility programs for high-energy-demand customers; cooperatives serving such customers must establish programs by January 1, 2029. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-13
  • PJM-vote transparency: SB777/HB84 became Chapter 558 and require investor-owned utilities and licensed suppliers in PJM to report annual recorded votes, affiliate votes, and public-interest explanations to the SCC by February 1 each year, increasing transparency over utility positions in PJM debates affected by data-center load growth. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-13
  • Policy status of broader ratepayer bills: HB591, HB503/SB466, HB658, and SB339 did not become law in 2026, but their concerns overlap with the enacted GS-5, cost-allocation, demand-flexibility, IRP, and load-forecasting measures. Virginia LIS, 2026-02-18; Virginia LIS, 2026-01-07; Virginia LIS, 2026-01-13; Virginia LIS, 2026-04-13
  • Rider T-1 transmission-cost case: In SCC Case No. PUR-2026-00056, Dominion seeks roughly $1.5 billion through Rider T-1. At the July 14 hearing, SCC staff, the governor’s office, advocates, and an electric cooperative argued that data-center-driven transmission costs should be assigned more directly, while large-load customers opposed project-specific allocation in this rider proceeding; no final order had issued by July 17. Virginia SCC order of notice, 2026-05-11; Utility Dive, 2026-07-15
  • Temporary electricity-consumption tax: The final 2026-2028 budget imposed a separate $0.011-per-kWh tax on all electricity consumed at data centers from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2028. The SCC collects the tax; net general-fund receipts are capped at $600 million per year, with excess collections refunded pro rata. This is a tax, not a utility tariff or SCC cost-of-service allocation. Virginia Budget Portal, 2026-06-29
  • PJM market-monitor cost findings: Monitoring Analytics’ March 2026 annual report estimated that existing and forecast data-center load increased total PJM capacity-market costs by $23.1 billion across the 2025/2026, 2026/2027, and 2027/2028 delivery-year auctions. Its May quarterly report separately estimated a $16.603 billion increase across the first two of those auctions and concluded that the three auction outcomes were not competitive, with large actual and forecast data-center load the central capacity-market issue. These are PJM-wide wholesale-market estimates, not Virginia-only retail bill impacts. Monitoring Analytics, 2026-03-12; Monitoring Analytics, 2026-05-14
  • PJM capacity-auction result: PJM’s 2028/2029 capacity auction procured 138,318 MW but cleared at the $325/MW-day price cap and remained about 6.8 GW short of its reliability requirement. PJM attributed roughly 2 GW of additional forecast demand since the prior auction largely to data-center development; the regional result is a wholesale adequacy and cost signal, not a Virginia retail-rate order. Utility Dive, 2026-07-15

4) Generation adequacy (new supply, storage, concerns)

  • Commercial electricity sales growth: EIA reported that commercial electricity sales in Virginia increased by nearly 30.0 million MWh between 2019 and 2025, with growth largely driven by data centers as well as EV adoption and building electrification. EIA, 2026-05-05
  • Dominion-zone peak growth: EIA reported Dominion-zone summer peak load of 23,905 MW in 2025, 23% higher than in 2019, and winter peak load of 25,413 MW in winter 2025-26, 45% higher than in winter 2019-20. EIA, 2026-05-05
  • CERC status update: The SCC reasserted its approval of Dominion’s 944 MW, $1.47 billion Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center after denying reconsideration in February 2026; the plant is planned for construction beginning in 2026 and completion in 2029, although environmental groups continued appeals. News From The States, 2026-02-16
  • CERC appeal status: On May 27, 2026, Virginia Mercury reported that the Southern Environmental Law Center, representing community and environmental groups, appealed the SCC approval of CERC to the Supreme Court of Virginia. Virginia Mercury, 2026-05-27
  • Cumberland Energy Center proposal: Dominion announced plans for a multibillion-dollar 3,000 MW combined-cycle natural-gas plant in Cumberland County, with construction targeted for 2029 and operations in 2033 or 2034 if approved; Dominion said roughly 75% of projected demand growth is attributable to data centers. Virginia Business, 2026-05-07
  • Offshore wind milestone: Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project began sending commercial power to the grid in March 2026; Virginia Business reported the first turbine was 14.7 MW, the full project is $11.5 billion, and completion is expected in early 2027. Virginia Business, 2026-04-29
  • CVOW scale: Dominion describes CVOW as a 2.6 GW, 176-turbine project expected to generate enough renewable electricity for up to 660,000 homes. Dominion Energy, accessed 2026-06-10
  • Battery storage near data-center load: Tenaska filed local applications in April 2026 for a proposed $750 million, 425 MW Spoonbill battery storage project in Loudoun County, with possible customers including utilities, corporate buyers, and data centers. Virginia Business, 2026-04-28
  • Google/Voltus PJM VPP: On June 3, 2026, Google and Voltus announced a three-year, up-to-100 MW virtual power plant in PJM that aggregates distributed energy resources as a capacity strategy for data-center growth. Voltus, 2026-06-03; Utility Dive, 2026-06-03
  • July heat emergency and Dominion-zone warning: DOE emergency orders effective June 30-July 3 authorized PJM, as a last resort, to direct data centers and other large loads with backup generation to switch off grid supply. During the July 2 heat event, PJM estimated a record 168.158 GW unrestricted peak, called about 6.113 GW of demand response, and issued a backup-generator warning for the BGE, PEPCO, and Dominion zones; the warning did not escalate to an actual mandatory backup-generator action. U.S. Department of Energy, 2026-06-30; S&P Global, 2026-07-10

5) Utility load forecasts (data center-driven growth)

  • PJM 2026 load forecast: EIA reported that PJM expects the Dominion zone to have the largest absolute increase in summer peak demand from 2026 through 2030, largely because of data-center load, and that the zone serves the largest concentration of data centers in the world. EIA, 2026-05-05
  • Dominion-zone growth rate: PJM’s 2026 forecast, as summarized by EIA, expects Dominion-zone summer peak load to grow 5.4% per year over the next 10 years, down from the 6.3% growth rate in PJM’s 2025 forecast. EIA, 2026-05-05
  • Dominion large-load forecast methodology: Dominion’s PJM documentation distinguishes near-term service agreements from less-certain engineering/load-opportunity agreements, reflecting a screening approach to avoid treating all speculative requests as firm load. Dominion Energy, 2026-01-06
  • IRP reform: HB429/SB249 became Chapters 607/608 and changed utility integrated-resource-plan requirements, including a 20-year planning horizon, triennial filings, grid-enhancing-technology and surplus-interconnection-service review, and SCC guidelines/review proceedings by July 1, 2027. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-13
  • Formal SCC load-forecasting review: HB892 requires an SCC proceeding on load-forecasting practices by Dominion, Appalachian Power, and electric cooperatives, making data-center-driven forecast uncertainty a formal regulatory issue rather than only an IRP modeling issue. Virginia LIS, 2026-05-26
  • Project-level load signals outside core Northern Virginia: Stack’s Stafford Technology Campus reached a first-building construction milestone in May 2026 and is planned for more than 1 GW across 19 data centers, while TAC Data Centers’ Wythe County proposal would also require more than 1 GW of power capacity. Data Center Dynamics, 2026-05-26; Cardinal News, 2026-06-04
  • Southside and Richmond-area expansion filings: Stack’s Berry Hill project in Pittsylvania County moved from land sale to a local performance agreement in May 2026, Microsoft filed for a 490-acre Mecklenburg County expansion with an on-site substation and water-storage facility, and Google filed for Chesterfield County’s Project Loch with three planned on-site substations. Cardinal News, 2026-05-19; Data Center Dynamics, 2026-06-04; Data Center Dynamics, 2026-05-14
  • Additional post-June load signals: Tract proposed a 900-MW, 12-building Tuckahoe Technology Park in Goochland County, while a Crusoe-linked party entered early discussions for a 50-100 MW Project Flash at Franklin County’s Summit View Business Park. Both remained proposals rather than committed utility load as of July 17. Goochland County, 2026-06-10; Data Center Dynamics, 2026-07-16
  • Statewide resource-data reporting: The final budget directs the SCC, assisted by DEQ and other agencies, to report aggregated data-center electric-service agreements, contracted demand and load, water use, and backup-generator permits by October 1, 2026, creating a new statewide reporting point for comparing contracted load with actual facilities and resource use. Virginia Budget Portal, 2026-06-29
  • Grid-utilization metrics: HB434/SB621 became Chapter 611 and require Dominion and Appalachian Power to petition the SCC by October 15, 2026 for approval of grid-utilization metrics and assessment of non-wires alternatives, adding another state planning tool for a grid under data-center load pressure. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-13
  • Surplus interconnection pilots: HB1065/SB508 became Chapter 1089 and direct Dominion and Appalachian Power to assess available interconnection capacity at existing and planned intermittent generation facilities and establish pilot programs for storage and solar resources using surplus interconnection service. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-22

6) Behind-the-meter (BTM), co-location, and direct supply

  • Wise County gas co-location proposal: Wise Innovation Hub plans about 2 million square feet of data centers with on-site natural-gas generation; Red Post Energy’s early-stage concept would start around 100 MW and could scale to 500-600 MW, with 20%-30% of power potentially exported to the grid. Cardinal News, 2026-02-25
  • T5 Chantilly/Dulles fuel-cell proposal: T5 Data Centers proposed a 312,000-square-foot facility at Westfields International Center using 60 MW of on-site natural-gas fuel cells as primary power, Dominion grid power for higher demand, and diesel generators for backup; Data Center Dynamics reported that the company sought local clarification on whether the outdoor fuel-cell yard is allowed under current zoning. Virginia Business, 2026-05-11; Data Center Dynamics, 2026-05-28
  • Policy treatment of customer generation: HB1393/SB253’s standby/supplementary-service tariff requirement directly targets customers that have their own power plants, a category that can include data centers using on-site generation or co-located supply. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-02
  • FERC co-location track: FERC’s Docket AD24-11 technical conference on large loads co-located at generating facilities remains relevant to Virginia because multiple Virginia proposals now involve on-site gas generation, fuel cells, or direct supply arrangements. FERC, 2024-11-01
  • PJM co-location filing: PJM filed proposed behind-the-meter and co-located-load tariff reforms at FERC in February 2026, including a 50 MW threshold, new transmission-service concepts, and transition treatment for existing contracts. Utility Dive, 2026-02-24
  • PJM co-location comments: In March 2026, the Data Center Coalition, Vistra, Constellation, Monitoring Analytics, and other stakeholders criticized PJM’s co-location proposal over curtailment, commercial viability, and reliability-risk issues. Utility Dive, 2026-03-27

7) Transmission constraints and upgrades

  • PJM 2025 RTEP Window 1 approval: PJM’s February 2026 approval included $11.8 billion of baseline transmission projects, with roughly $4.8 billion assigned to Dominion Energy Virginia projects to address reliability needs tied to rapid load growth. Utility Dive, 2026-02-17
  • Loudoun import backbone: Utility Dive reported that Dominion’s package includes a planned 525-kV underground backbone line and HVDC converter stations designed to deliver 3,000 MW into Loudoun County by 2032. Utility Dive, 2026-02-17
  • Golden-Mars route approved: In Case No. PUR-2025-00056, the SCC’s June 29 final order approved Route 3A for Dominion’s Golden-Mars project in eastern Loudoun County, including a new 500-kV line and a 230-kV loop needed to serve rapid data-center load growth. Virginia SCC, 2026-06-29; Dominion Energy, updated 2026-06-29
  • Data-center load as a transmission driver: PJM’s 2026 Load Report lists a Dominion load adjustment for “growth in data center load and voltage optimization program,” directly linking the Dominion-zone forecast adjustment to data-center growth. PJM, 2026-01-23
  • Transmission-planning process change: HB429/SB249 requires future IRP analysis to include grid-enhancing technologies and surplus interconnection service, adding statutory pressure to examine non-wires or higher-utilization options alongside new transmission construction. Virginia LIS, 2026-04-13
  • SCC transparency on large-load interconnection: The SCC’s February 2026 data-center initiatives fact sheet says Dominion must submit its process for interconnecting large-load customers for SCC review and approval in a future proceeding, and Dominion made that filing in February 2026. Virginia SCC, 2026-02-24; Virginia Business, 2026-02-17
  • NERC/FERC large-load action plan: NERC filed an accelerated large-load action plan in FERC RM26-4 on March 20, 2026, citing reliability lessons from large data-center loads in Virginia and Texas and listing parallel reliability tasks for large-load integration. NERC, 2026-03-20
  • FERC June action: FERC followed its April commitment by issuing six tailored Section 206 show-cause orders on June 18. PJM must justify its existing large-load tariff or file reforms within 60 days, so federal treatment of load studies, cost allocation, flexibility, co-location, and proximate generation remained an active proceeding rather than a final nationwide rule as of July 17. FERC, 2026-06-18