Dominion Energy loves to tout how supposedly “green” it is, but every time anyone really digs into the details, they find that it’s more “greenwashing” than “green.” For instance, check out this new report by the Sierra Club, which finds that:
- “Almost all of [electric utilities’] pledges to become ‘carbon neutral’ sometime in the future are nothing more than distractions from the fact that they are not transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy fast enough…The aggregate score for all companies studied is 17 out of 100, which is strikingly low considering the emission cuts needed to stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis.”
- “The companies studied plan to add 250 million MWh of new wind and solar energy (clean energy) to the grid between 2020 and 2030. This is equivalent to only 19 percent of their current coal and gas generation.”
- “Dominion Virginia gets a D” score overall: 34/100 overall, with just 13% of its coal-fired power plants slated to retire by 2030, with a whopping 1,970 megawatts of new gas-fired power capacity by 2030, and with just 68% as much clean power planned as existing fossil. In other words, a massive #FAIL by Dominion, considering both the urgency of the climate crisis and the increasingly attractive economics of clean energy. Yet, instead of going all out on clean energy, Dominion is half-assing it, basically, and continuing to build new fossil-fired power plants, as if we the climate crisis and energy economics weren’t real. Pathetic.
- Dominion continues to be horrendously bad when it comes to the “cheapest form of energy” – energy efficiency. According to the new Sierra Club report’s “Energy efficiency leaderboard,” Dominion ranks towards the bottom nationwide among utilities, along with Appalachian Power and a few other REALLY bad utilities (Entergy Mississippi, Entergy Texas, Duke Energy Florida, Entergy Louisiana, Florida Power & Light, etc. This confirms the findings in the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s 2020 report, which were that out of the 52 utilities ACEEE looked on its 2020 Utility Energy Efficiency Scorecard, Dominion ranks third-to-last, clocking in at a pathetic, disgraceful #50.
So yeah, Dominion – despite its relentless propaganda to the contrary – continues to suck when it comes to moving quickly to 100% clean energy. Perhaps this abysmal situation will change with the passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) last year, but even with that, we’re still going to need to push Dominion much harder, including some form of “decoupling” of Dominion’s revenues from how much electricity it produces…as opposed to how efficient it is. So…Virginia General Assembly, what are you planning on doing about this?!?
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