Renewable Generation

Renewable energy is an important part of Dominion's plan to meet the ever-growing need for electricity. Renewable energy comes from sources that can be replenished, including solar, wind, falling water, biomass, geothermal, wave and tidal.

Renewable energy is an increasingly important aspect of Dominion’s diverse generating portfolio.  In the near term, renewable power helps lower the company’s carbon intensity and reduces our exposure to unpredictable fuel price swings.  Longer term, it is an important aspect of our climate change strategy and the nation’s transition to a low-carbon economy.

Adding renewable resources to our generating portfolio has important advantages:

• It reduces our carbon intensity;
• It diversifies our new-build portfolio, which helps lower our exposure to fuel price volatility; and
• It positions us to respond to any federal RPS standard or carbon legislation that Congress may pass in the future.

Dominion has two specific and measureable goals related to renewable energy.  They are:

1. Achieve renewable energy goal of 15% renewable power by 2025 (Virginia)
2. Achieve renewable energy goal of 12.5% renewable power by 2021 (North Carolina)

Dominion supports these standards through the use of existing renewable resources, development of new renewable resources, and purchase of renewable energy certificates.

As depicted in this chart, since year 2004, Dominion has substantially grown its renewable fleet.

Dominion’s renewable assets include wind, hydro, wood biomass and a community solar program, either in operation or under development in Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Indiana and Illinois.  When fully operational, their combined output will exceed 1,600 megawatts of clean energy – enough to supply more than 400,000 typical households.

In 2010, hydroelectric power provided almost half (46%) of our in-service renewable energy capacity.  Wind power accounted for about 41 percent of the total, with the remaining 13 percent coming from wood biomass.

>> Here's our current Renewable Power Generation Portfolio.

Virginia Renewable Portfolio Standard

Dominion supported the Virginia General Assembly's passage of legislation to re-regulate the state's electricity industry. As part of that legislation, Virginia passed a voluntary Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to encourage the development of renewable energy in the Commonwealth. In support of this standard, Dominion Virginia Power is developing plans to increase the amount of renewable energy provided to customers based on the following schedule that Dominion will be striving to achieve.

In Virginia, renewable energy is defined as energy derived from sunlight, wind, falling water, biomass, energy from waste, wave motion, tides and geothermal power and does not include energy derived from coal, oil, natural gas, pumped storage hydro, or nuclear.

North Carolina Renewable Portfolio Standard

Dominion also supported North Carolina's renewable energy and energy efficiency legislation which was passed in the summer of 2007. This requires that Dominion North Carolina Power sales in North Carolina in 2021 come from renewable energy sources according to the following schedule.

In North Carolina, eligible energy resources include solar, wind, small hydroelectric, wave energy, tidal energy, biomass, and landfill gas.

Dominion is also a retail electricity supplier in a number of states that have requirements that address renewable energy, and thus provides customers in those states with renewable energy.

• Onshore Wind power
• Offshore Wind Power 
• Hydro power
• Biomass Power
• Solar Power 
• Community Solar Power Program 
• Other - Alt Energy