Virginia Orders Dominion Energy to Shift Infrastructure Costs to Data Centers

The Virginia State Corporation Commission ordered Dominion Energy to develop a new tariff and policy that assigns the costs of transmission infrastructure directly to data centers and other large-load users. The ruling ends a practice where general electricity customers funded infrastructure built specifically to serve commercial data centers.

Dominion Energy had previously sought to recover $1.5 billion through rate increases. While the company recalculated its request to levy more costs onto data centers via the GS-5 rate class, the resulting monthly increase for the average customer would have still been $0.94. The new regulatory order is projected to save Virginia residents hundreds of millions of dollars by shifting these costs to the facilities triggering the upgrades.

The decision follows intervention from Governor Abigail Spanberger's administration and testimony from the Piedmont Environmental Council. Dominion Energy currently manages over 200 transmission projects to support more than 600 data centers in the state, including the proposed 115-mile Valley Link transmission line. Dominion Energy must now file a new cost assignment proposal with the commission within 90 days to comply with the ruling.