A recent “report” in the Richmond
Times Dispatch stating that Dominion Virginia Power’s conservation programs
will raise power rates for Virginians by 34 cents disregards the $1.32 extra
that Dominion’s Virginia ratepayers will have to fork over to pay for a new
coal plant in Wise County, euphemistically dubbed the Virginia City Hybrid
Energy Center.[1][2] That is, Dominion’s residential ratepayers in
Virginia will be paying nearly four times as much on their monthly utility bill
for a new coal plant as for energy efficiency.
With coal as a rapidly declining source of energy for
Virginians, as for Americans in general, and an indisputable source of greenhouse
gases and toxic pollutants[3],
the headline should have made hay over the inexcusable construction of another
coal-fired power plant in the commonwealth and the subsequent financial toll it
will make on Virginia’s ratepayers.
What the headline could have also said is that the new
energy efficiency programs introduced by Dominion will reduce the utility bills
of Dominion’s residential ratepayers more than the price of the efficiency
programs.
Dominion’s new energy efficiency programs are a win-win for
Dominion, its customers, and Virginia, not a new coal plant in Wise County that
costs nearly four times as much as energy efficiency. That’s the real headline.
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