SCC Asks Tough Questions about Nukes, CO2 Emissions
Posted on December 30, 2015 by James A. Bacon

Given the legal and regulatory uncertainties associated with Clean Power Plan, which requires Virginia to reduce CO2 emissions 30% by 2030, Dominion Virginia Power’s 15-year strategic plan filed in July 2015 is reasonable and in the public interest, the State Corporation Commission (SCC) ruled in a final ruling released today. However, the SCC also detailed substantial additional analysis it would like to see in the Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) Dominion files next year.

The electric company had filed four broad options for responding to the mandates of the Clean Power Plan, including one that relied heavily upon nuclear power. The power company did not recommend one option over the others in July because it did not know precisely how the Clean Power Plan would impact Virginia. While the Environmental Protection Agency has finalized Virginia’s CO2 emission targets since then, the state still has yet to choose between two possible approaches, whether to focus on the absolute volume of CO2 emissions or CO2 emissions on a kilowatt-hour basis. That decision could have significant impact on how power companies respond to the mandates.

Consumer and environmentalist groups had urged the SCC to reject the IRP on the grounds that the projected $19.3 billion cost for a third nuclear unit at the North Anna power station was excessive under any scenario. A project of that magnitude, the SCC noted, would roughly double the size of Virginia’s electric rate base.

While the SCC saw no need to amend the 2015 IRP, it noted pointedly that it views the IRP only as a planning document, “not as a document that will determine future Commission decisions on future resources or the recovery of specific expenditures.”

The commission instructed Dominion to take a very different approach to its 2016 IRP...