Virginia officials ask SCC to deny or condition Dominion-NextEra merger

Virginia officials asked the State Corporation Commission to deny or condition the proposed Dominion-NextEra merger at an Oct. 9 local hearing, Utility Dive reported. They cited data center cost allocation, among other issues; the session followed an Oct. 7 hearing in Newport News.

The SCC will take public testimony by telephone on Nov. 5, 9 and 10, and the evidentiary hearing opens Nov. 17. Under the case's current 180-day review clock, the commission is set to decide in January.

Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi said Tuesday she had concluded the merger is "not in the best interest of Virginians," following a five-city listening tour. Governor Abigail Spanberger has not taken a definitive position; she has called herself "skeptical" and in August filed with the SCC to be a respondent. NextEra has said Dominion Energy Virginia would remain locally led and fully regulated, Utility Dive previously reported.

Alexandria City Councilman John Taylor Chapman told the Oct. 9 hearing that "the creation of the nation's largest electric utility will put Alexandrians at risk of runaway utility costs with limited recourse." State Sen. Jennifer Boysko, in a statement read by her chief of staff, Karen Harrison, did not speak for or against the merger but cited ratepayer burden and the absence of "clear language in the merger proposal for ratepayer protection," and asked for a "clear commitment" to the VCEA. U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman called the deal "a bad deal for Virginians" and said data centers "need to pay their fair share."

Don Slaiman, political coordinator for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26, said he had not planned to speak because his unions are still negotiating with NextEra and Dominion. He did not give an opinion on the merger, but pushed back on earlier criticism of data center development: if that data had to be served privately instead of through data centers, he said, "we'd be using almost half of our grid instead of the 6% or 7% we're using now."

An examiner ordered Dominion to produce an FPL memo sought by Clean Virginia and the Piedmont Environmental Council. Dominion argued the political record has nothing to do with the merger, per Utility Dive's Oct. 5 report.

The recurring fight over how data centers pay for the grid runs through the case as a condition on approval. U.S. Bank's Tim Keller has said rising rates complicate utility capital spending, with utilities seeking backup bank financing as the Department of Energy pulls back from certain loans.