In his quest for a net-zero emissions house, Tim Leroux has already achieved gold status. But he’s not content to rest on those energy-efficiency laurels.

The Albemarle County homeowner is itching to reach platinum. And he believes a heat pump upgrade will eventually punch that ticket.

For guidance, the healthcare risk manager will turn to a free online calculator recently unveiled by Charlottesville-based Pearl Certification to help homeowners nationwide navigate the maze of tax credits and point-of-sale rebates for cleaner appliances covered by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 

Pearl built its niche reputation awarding green seals of approval to customers such as Leroux seeking higher-performing homes.

Leroux, who says he is “evangelical about energy efficiency,” is bullish on the company’s offerings, which range from certifying contractors to training real estate agents.

It ties into Pearl’s dual mission of decarbonizing the nation’s housing stock and maximizing the return homeowners receive on their energy-efficient upgrades. The whole idea is to encourage people to take stock of the hidden — and thus often ignored — infrastructure that keeps their home ticking.

“It can be flat-out confusing for the uninitiated,” he said, adding that eligibility requirements and potential savings offered by the IRA adds another layer of complexity. “It’s hard to sell a solution for a problem people think they don’t have.”

The company’s origin

Residential energy use accounts for about 20% of this country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

That figure prompted Cynthia Adams to launch Pearl Certification in 2015. Adams, who grew up in Northern Virginia’s Prince William County, was no rookie to energy efficiency.

Adams entered the technical field in the late 1990s while leading a sustainable design/build company and then a green building consulting firm. In 2008, she had a hand in originating a climate action plan for the Charlottesville region.

Within two years, she had helped write the grant that funded what became the Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP), where she began serving as executive director in 2010. The nonprofit provides energy efficiency and solar solutions for homes and businesses in the Charlottesville region and Northern Virginia.

Adams co-founded Pearl because she yearned to move the needle on residential energy efficiency as painlessly as possible. Her goal is for homeowners to earn points and advance their green ranking while plotting a strategic plan toward living in a healthier house with a lower carbon footprint, reduced utility bills and a higher appraisal value. 

“We’re very much a human organization, not a bunch of techies,” said Adams, now based in Durango, Colo. “And that personal touch is how we get a national movement going.

“That, and never tell a woman she can’t do something. It’s a surefire way to get her to do it.”

Seeking a stable model

Jennifer Amann, a senior fellow with the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s buildings program, watched Pearl come into existence during her lengthy career in the industry.

“Cynthia and her co-founder, Robin LeBaron, were asking how they could create a steady demand for high quality, efficient services to improve buildings, address climate change and make homes healthier,” said Amann, based in Washington, D.C.

For the most part, energy efficiency updates at the residential level tend to lurch along unevenly, dependent on the vagaries of the U.S. Congress and how much money the federal government attached to assorted rebates and credits.

That “super, super challenging” up-and-down pattern led the two entrepreneurs to form a network of local, reliable contractors with high-level expertise revolving around appliances, insulation, drainage, heating and ventilating, and every other aspect of energy efficiency, Amann said. Pearl vets and accredits each contractor.

Contractors pay fees to belong to the network, which is how Pearl earns its money.

“That is not at all an unusual model,” Amann said. “It’s valuable for contractors to invest because they know they can get better leads and relationships, and return business. Customers benefit because they have access to somebody who can help them through a confusing process and not be stuck with just a guy and a truck.”

Home performance is a complex market, she said. Most homeowners don’t upgrade all at once and part of Pearl’s appeal is that homeowners can easily track their progress toward peak efficiency.  

Homeowners can contact their own contractors, use any number of free IRA calculators now available and do their own homework with their state energy office to cash in on credits and rebates, Amann noted.

“But there’s peace of mind in working with somebody who can walk through all the steps with you,” she said. “I mean, energy efficiency is my world and I don’t want to do all of that myself.” 

Virginia’s IRA rebate rollout set for 2025

IRA-related tax credits of up to 30% on the cost of electric vehicles, home energy audits, electric appliances, solar panels and other projects became available nationwide last year.

However, rebate programs remain stuck in the bureaucratic process because state energy offices are tasked with crafting and operating their own initiatives.

A few states might roll out programs later this year,  but Virginia won’t be among them. Bettina Bergöö, associate director of energy efficiency and financing at the Virginia Energy Department, confirmed that the state’s rebate program likely won’t debut until the first few months of 2025, at the earliest.

When available, the IRA-funded rebate programs will be split into two components. One, the home efficiency rebate, is based on measurable energy savings achieved so it does not specify any required retrofits or technologies. 

The other, the home electrification and appliance rebate, is technology specific. Upgrades that qualify include heat pumps for space heating and cooling, heat pump water heaters, heat pump clothes dryers, electric stoves, cooktops, ranges or ovens, electric wiring, and insulation, air sealing and ventilation.

Virginia has been allocated a total of $189 million to fund the rebates, according to Virginia Energy. That total is split about evenly between the two rebate programs.

The federal government has set eligibility parameters for the rebates, which states are allowed to expand or contract as they see fit. For instance, states could choose to set income limits to steer the benefits toward poorer households.

“These decisions are to be made by each state based on their respective needs and program objectives,” Bergöö said, adding that such a review is still underway in Virginia. 

Opening a green door

Pearl will be updating its calculator as Virginia and other states release their rebate parameters.

In the meantime, Leroux and other efficiency aficionados can tap into Green Door, an application Pearl invented in 2020 that offers customized, step-by-step plans toward reducing reliance on fossil fuels to power their homes.

It links users with Pearl’s contractors and allows them to earn points verifying the efficiency ranking of their home. An “asset” rating means a home has at least one high-performing feature. From there, enrollees can graduate to silver, gold and platinum levels.

“I liken it to airline or hotel loyalty points,” Leroux said about Green Door. “It tells you exactly where you’re at and what you need to do to reach the next level. I’m working toward platinum because I think it’s super cool.”

To vault from silver to gold over the last several years, he earned Pearl points for modernizing his lighting and switching to a tankless water heater and a more efficient refrigerator. He achieved “gold with solar” status last year after installing a 9.72-kilowatt rooftop array.

“A lot of this stuff is a little hard to get excited about because it isn’t as sexy” as his 27 solar panels, he said, adding that he gets an adrenaline boost when he plugs his data into the application and “I see the needle go way up.”

As intuitive as the online application is, Leroux recommends property owners reach out to a nonprofit weatherization organization or a contractor for an energy audit.

“After that, you can use Green Door to build out a plan,” Leroux said. “It lays out the incentives, connects you with contractors and shows you how you can get the biggest bang for your buck.”

Efficiency now part of sales pitch

Leroux, a retired U.S. Army officer, bought his Charlottesville area house in 2020, realized what a bargain he had escaped with when, post-purchase, he found paperwork confirming it was Pearl-certified with a silver rating.

“It wasn’t marketed that way,” Leroux said. “When I called a friend in real estate, he told me I should have paid $20,000 more than I did because of that certification.”

That friend was Greg Slater, a Charlottesville broker and Realtor. The two knew each other through LEAP. During Adams’ tenure there, Leroux had served as director of operations and Slater was on the nonprofit’s board of directors. 

Slater, in business for 27 years, schooled himself early on about the intricacies of energy efficiency improvements and how they can add value to a home’s sale price.

Now, as a member of the Pearl network, he pays for a certification report on each house he markets so he can pitch the benefits of energy efficiency to potential buyers. The reports that accompany home listings cover details of the building shell, heating and cooling, baseload electricity use and management of future upgrades.

“You don’t have to become a building-science expert, but you have to figure out a way to get comfortable with this information,” said Slater, who earned green credentials a decade ago from training via the National Association of Realtors. “The average realtor is intimidated and afraid to have that conversation.”

Buyers are savvy about sizing up curb appeal and the value of visible assets such as type of countertops and number of bedrooms and bathrooms, he emphasized.

“But they won’t pay for the features they’re not aware of,” he continued, “and that includes heat pumps, tankless water heaters, air sealing, solar and other upgrades they likely won’t notice or care about unless somebody takes the time to educate them.”

Pearl certification can add about 5% to the sale price of a Charlottesville-area house, Slater said. He pointed to a study completed in 2021 by an independent appraiser.

That premium is enticing to Leroux, though he has no immediate plans to put his home, built in 2012, on the market.

“For me, the real proof is when I go to sell this house,” he said.

Barring an emergency breakdown of his current heat pump, Leroux will track what type of replacement might be possible next year when Virginia publicizes its IRA-related rebate specifics. He suspects his income might be too high for him to qualify. 

If that’s the case, he will pursue a different route to update his mechanical system, and seek out other nips and tucks to fine tune his home.

“This house already produces more energy than it uses,” he said. “Once you’ve tackled everything on the Green Door roadmap, you start running out of updates. But I’m a believer in living a net-zero life.”

How a Virginia company is helping homeowners navigate energy efficiency – and add up the rewards is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A new North Carolina climate plan outlines actions that would help curb greenhouse gas pollution by nearly two-thirds by 2030 — surpassing a state goal and meeting scientists’ recommendations for how to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. 

The state is already on pace to cut emissions just over 40% compared to 2005 levels. But the steps outlined in the new blueprint, crafted as part of the federal Inflation Reduction Act, would slash heat-trapping pollution even further.  

If sustained over the ensuing decades, the measures would also bring the state closer to zeroing out its climate footprint by midcentury, though officials stress that doing so would require “significant will, funding, and effort.” 

Finalized earlier this month after weeks of webinars, community meetings, and other forms of public feedback, the Priority Action Climate Plan covers six areas of the state’s economy: transportation, electricity, buildings, industry, waste, and lands. The action items are “implementation ready,” officials say, and not dependent on new state laws or policies. 

By far, the biggest opportunity for curbing pollution is in the building sector. Ramping up support for low-income weatherization assistance, energy efficiency upgrades in government buildings, and other measures to reduce energy usage per square foot could account for 60% of pollution reductions anticipated by 2030. 

“The buildings sector is one with a lot of low-hanging fruit that hasn’t been widely addressed to date,” said Sara Edwards, a spokesperson with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, which took the lead in crafting the action plan.  

Edwards noted the state’s 2009-era residential building code, which is frozen in place until 2031 thanks to a law passed last year. “Even new housing stock coming online is not as energy efficient as it could be,” she said.

Many older commercial and public buildings lack up-to-date lighting and energy management systems, she added. “State agency buildings alone have identified over $200 million of energy saving projects that are waiting for funding to implement,” she said.  

“The same types of projects could be implemented at public universities and community colleges, as well as schools and local government buildings, resulting in significant ongoing savings to [state] taxpayers,” said Edwards. 

Phasing out direct combustion of fossil fuels in buildings, such as from gas furnaces, could achieve another 36 million metric tons of emissions, almost a quarter of the cuts.  

Recommendations in the other five sectors combined could result in a fifth of the reductions, or a total of 29 million metric tons of carbon dioxide or the equivalent. 

In the transportation sector, today the state’s largest source of greenhouse gasses, priority steps include facilitating transportation choices other than cars and increased deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.  

To curb emissions from electric utilities, the plan focuses on boosting solar panels on homes, local government properties, and other small institutions, complementing a state law requiring Duke to ramp up larger-scale renewable energy investments. 

The blueprint also outlines programs to increase industrial efficiency, better capture methane gas from landfills, and restore and protect peatlands and forests, vital for their ability to capture and store carbon. 

North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality joined 44 other states in submitting its priority climate action plan, according to an announcement this week from the Environmental Protection Agency.  

Charlotte, the Triangle, and the Eastern Band of Cherokees were among nearly 200 metropolitan regions and tribes around the country who submitted their own plans, as well. 

The documents set the stage for the next phase of the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program. With the blueprints as their guide, tribes, states, and large metropolitan regions will now work to apply for $4.6 billion in competitive grants for implementation. 

As the Biden administration races to get Inflation Reduction Act funds out the door this year, the deadline for those proposals is April 1. 

Meanwhile, the Department will take comments on the priority plan until June 3, which it says will inform yet another strategy document required under the Inflation Reduction Act: a comprehensive climate action plan, due in June 2025. 

“Throughout this process,” Edwards said, “we’ve done public outreach and stakeholder engagement. That’s going to continue throughout. It’s not just like we’re going to drop this document and not take public comment.”

Here’s how North Carolina could cut climate emissions two-thirds by 2030 is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

During a summer’s afternoon in 2022, a 450-foot fireball exploded at a liquefied natural gas terminal south of Houston, rocking sunbathers on Quintana Beach, adjacent to the Freeport LNG terminal, and rattling homes for miles around.  

Eighteen months later, residents around the plant have yet to receive any information directly from Freeport LNG about what caused the explosion, or what to do if it were to happen again, said Melanie Oldham, one of the founders of Better Brazoria, an environmental and public health advocacy group who felt the blast in her living room, 3 miles from the terminal. 

John Allaire frequently hears the internal alarms go off at Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG terminal, just a mile from his home on the Gulf Coast in southwest Louisiana, but he never knows what’s causing them. He said when he asked about the alarms, a Venture Global executive told Allaire to call 911 if he was concerned. 

The Biden administration recently paused permitting for new LNG terminals to consider the macro implications such as climate change and national security of the U.S. becoming the world’s largest exporter of the super chilled, super condensed methane gas. But those living near the eight terminals already operating in the U.S. and the seven that are under construction have more immediate concerns — their safety. 

Unlike other industrial facilities, such as chemical plants and oil refineries, LNG operators don’t have to share with the general public information such as what chemicals are being used onsite and how an accident could impact the people who live around the facility. 

“If people knew the risks around LNG, there would be so much public outcry that this buildout wouldn’t happen,” said Naomi Yoder, who researched the safety of LNG facilities as a staff scientist at the environmental watchdog Healthy Gulf.

The LNG industry says its operations are safe. On the website for the Center for LNG, a  lobbying group, three paragraphs explain the safety of the emerging export industry. It points out that the U.S. Energy Department itself says “The physical and chemical properties of LNG render it safer than other commonly used hydrocarbons.” The Center for LNG did not respond to multiple requests for more information on LNG safety.

But the information needed for the public to verify that claim is often confidential because LNG terminals are considered critical infrastructure and could be terrorist targets. Companies also can shield information they consider to be trade secrets.

Even some of the computer models used to determine the risks of potential accidents at LNG terminals are proprietary. So scientists such as Jerry Havens — a professor emeritus of chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas who worked on the original safety standards for LNG import terminals — can’t verify their findings. And Havens is skeptical.

“What it means is that these places are being built shiny and new and approved with 1,100 and 1,200-page reports. But they are neglecting a major hazard. These calculations need to be checked.”

The risks around the terminals are made even more opaque by the fact the LNG industry is regulated by three federal agencies: the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Coast Guard.  

One of those agencies, PHMSA, is using regulations from the 1980s — before the United States started exporting LNG and when the fuel was mainly used as a backup for gas-fired power plants. 

“There’s not sufficient information to know what the full risks are, and the repercussions of no one understanding are huge,” said Elizabeth Calderon, an attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.

Law allows plans to stay mostly secret 

The secrecy around the safety information for LNG terminals is a contrast from refineries or petrochemical plants that are regulated under the federal Emergency Planning Community Right to Know Act. Under that law, facilities that handle chemicals are required to prepare risk management plans for the Environmental Protection Agency. Portions of those plans, including off-site scenarios, are made available for the public to view at federal courthouses. 

But in 1998, the EPA exempted facilities “used to liquefy natural or synthetic gas or used to transfer, store, or vaporize LNG in conjunction with pipeline transportation” because the facilities are not considered “stationary.” PHMSA confirmed it does not enforce the Right to Know Act. 

PHMSA and FERC do require developers and owners of LNG facilities to create and regularly update their emergency response plans, but the public availability of those plans on FERC’s website is uneven. Some, like for Freeport LNG, are available and updated regularly. But others, such as for the operating Corpus Christi LNG, could not be found by Floodlight. 

And while 11 pages of its 170-page plan for under-construction Venture Global Plaquemines is publicly available, not even a redacted version could be found for Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass terminal, which is already operating.  The information that is available in those plans, and in material distributed by companies such as Freeport LNG emphasize the low risk of an accident. 

Yoder said ideally, the plans would contain a “worst case scenario” for the LNG storage tanks and tankers that describes a potential blast radius and risks to people within each radius.

“All the important stuff is redacted,” said James Hiatt, a fisherman and environmental activist who lives in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. “They tell us that all of it is proprietary information and it’s national security. They won’t tell us what the risk is. People deserve to know if they are safe in their homes.”

As industry grows, so do accidents

Dick Gremillion, director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for Calcasieu Parish, says he isn’t overly concerned with the risks of LNG compared with the multiple other refineries and petrochemical facilities in the Lake Charles area. The region is home to several oil refineries, including one lightning struck in 2023, and chemical plants, where explosions are common.

Chuck Watson, founder of Enki, a company that models the risks of natural and manmade hazards, agrees the likelihood of an LNG accident is quite low. But, he added, “The problem is if you have an accident, the consequences are quite high.” 

A 2009 report from the Congressional Research Service suggests the safety record of the industry is mixed. It cites 13 serious accidents in the world involving LNG, including a 2004 fire at a terminal in Algeria that killed 27 workers. The report concludes that import terminals pose safety challenges because “LNG is inherently hazardous and its infrastructure is potentially attractive to terrorists.”

Regional concerns about LNG have been heightened by a string of incidents at facilities since the U.S. began exporting the fuel in 2016. The 2022 accident south of Houston, in which a segment of pipe exploded, occurred because Freeport failed to identify hazards or to implement changes from a 2021 hazard analysis. Worker fatigue from overtime was listed as a contributing cause. 

In 2018, PHMSA ordered Cheniere Energy to shut down two LNG tanks at its Sabine Pass, Texas, plant and fined it for failing to deal with known leaks in its double-hulled tanks. And in 2022, Calcasieu Pass was cited by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality for exceeding permitted release levels 139 times. 

“Operational problems, procedures, lack of controls, proper controls, lack of adequate training. These types of things keep happening at LNG facilities,” Allaire said. “The potential is there. There is human error and these kinds of things keep happening. Something is going to happen here in the U.S.”

Potentially deadly problems

Havens, the retired chemical engineering professor, has been sounding the alarm for years on one specific accident that could happen at a liquified natural gas LNG terminal — a vapor cloud explosion in zero wind conditions. These can occur when a large amount of flammable refrigerants, which are used to superchill the gas, leak and create a cloud of vapor. 

Without wind to disperse the gas, the clouds can become larger and more dangerous. If ignited, these vapor clouds can explode at a much higher pressure than a typical chemical explosion

The industry acknowledges the potential for vapor cloud explosions in permit applications and environmental impact statements. In almost every case, the risk of vapor cloud explosions is limited, according to those analyses, because it would stay within the perimeter of the terminals.

But Havens argues those calculations don’t, among other things, account for zero or low wind conditions. 

“The risk has been calculated away,” Havens said. “They are actually ignoring a catastrophic risk.”

A British industrial safety agency says the risks of such explosions can be reduced by installing a small number of sensors. 

PHMSA has commissioned research into the issue and says the concerns about vapor cloud explosions in zero-wind conditions might be addressed as part of its long-promised update to LNG safety regulations. The agency says its notice of proposed rulemaking for those updates will be issued in May, but it has promised the updated rules for at least two years. 

Tankers carry risks

When LNG import facilities were being proposed in the early 2000s, there was a public outcry over the potential that terrorists could target the ships as they traveled through populated areas. The Coast Guard and state and local police responded by escorting the tankers in and out of Boston Harbor with machine guns.

Along the Gulf Coast, however, the presence of Coast Guard escorts is not evident, said  Allaire, who can watch the tankers pass by his property two or three times a week. 

The Coast Guard requires each LNG owner to develop safety plans, including having an incident commander aboard each vessel in the event of an accident. The agency, however, did not directly answer whether it still escorts LNG tankers, saying it screens every vessel for safety or security risk and conducts operations to address identified risks.

Watson, the risk modeler, is concerned about yet another danger: leaking LNG onto the water. When the gas, which is supercooled to -260 F, hits the warm water, the gas could warm and rapidly expand, creating a shock wave that could travel miles. If that gas ignited, it would cause vast destruction, Watson warns.

Watson conducted risk modeling for the Elba LNG terminal downriver from Savannah, Georgia. He found if there were a major rupture of a tanker ship or storage tank, heat from the resulting rapid phase transition could cause second degree burns up to 1.5 miles away. 

Who’s in charge? 

Confusion around which federal agency regulates which aspect of the LNG industry makes it hard for the public to get information, said Yoder, who is now GIS data manager at the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. 

“Honestly, when we asked PHMSA about the emergency response plans and about the risk assessments, they’re like, ‘OK, talk to FERC,’ ” Yoder said. “And then when we asked FERC, they say ‘You need to talk to PHMSA,’ and then we go back to PHMSA. They say, ‘Oh, well actually you should talk to OSHA.’ I mean it’s just absurd.”

Although “the law is not very clear on who has what authorities,” former FERC chair Richard Glick insists the overlap does not create blindspots in regulation.

But Glick said he wasn’t aware until shortly before he left FERC in 2022 how little residents around the terminals know about emergency planning. 

“The developer and the government are naturally concerned about making sure that certain information is unavailable to terrorists,” he said. 

“On the other hand, people who live in these communities have very legitimate reasons to be concerned about these facilities — whether it be evacuation plans, whether it be just plans about what’s going to be put in there, what the dangers of explosions, and all sorts of other potential issues are,” Glick added. “In my opinion, they weren’t necessarily receiving the information they should receive.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misstated James Hiatt’s parish of residence.

Secrecy around gas export terminals leaves public in the dark on dangers is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Virginia clean energy champions have their fingers crossed that members of a resurrected legislative commission won’t water down four utility-focused bills when they meet in the off-season to reshape the failed measures for next year’s General Assembly.

The rebooted Commission on Electric Utility Regulation, created to provide Virginia’s legislators guidance on increasingly complicated energy bills, is so new that it’s still hiring an executive director and other staffers. 

The commission won’t meet until after the session adjourns on March 9, but the list of bills it is expected to review is growing. Thus far, it includes House Bill 792, designed to prevent investor-owned utilities from adding expenses for lobbying and other political activities to ratepayers’ monthly bills. 

Also on the commission’s agenda are two separate bills attempting to boost competitive, third-party bidding on solar and offshore wind projects. 

A fourth — and probably not final — piece of legislation seeks to require utility regulators to enact energy policy at the lowest reasonable cost. Details are outlined in SB 137 and its companion, HB 976.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon, led the charge to revamp the long-dormant commission last year and budget money to hire a professional staff. He was frustrated that lawmakers, who all serve part time, counted solely on input from industry lobbyists and environmental advocacy organizations while shepherding Virginia’s transition to clean energy.

Its 13 members — three policy-savvy citizens and 10 legislators — are tasked with figuring out how stalled bills can be fixed and advanced.

Liz Veazey, the policy and rural energy director for the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors, understands the potential value of advice from a neutral body.

“Energy legislation can be extremely complex, so legislators do rely on lobbyists for information,” she said. “But utilities have a lot more lobbyists than we do. It’s hard to overcome the power Dominion Energy has in the legislature.”

Solar United Neighbors is backing the bill to limit the use of ratepayer funds on lobbying and other political activities. Veazey said she’s hoping interactions with the new commission will convince legislators to embrace accountability and transparency guardrails outlined in the measure.

Briefly, in addition to blocking Dominion and Appalachian Power from charging customers for lobbying government officials, the bill also would bar collecting money from customers for trade association dues, issue advertising, charitable giving and litigation to challenge laws and regulations.

The bill, sponsored by freshman Del. Rozia “J.R.” Henson, a Democrat representing counties in Northern Virginia, spells out that the two utilities would have to fund those activities with dollars that otherwise would have been returned to investors as profit.

“Ratepayers shouldn’t be covering these costs when investor-owned utilities use some of that money to lobby against solar and fight against our interest in clean energy,” Veazey said. “We’re not saying the utilities can’t participate in these activities … but they should be using shareholder money instead of ratepayer money.”

Smoothing what’s stuck

Over at the Southern Environmental Law Center, staff attorney Josephus Allmond has faith that the new legislative utility commission can dislodge sticking points that stymied progress on the Affordable, Reliable and Competitive bill (House Bill 638, Senate Bill 230) earlier this month.

The legislation’s goal is to elevate the role of customers and private developers in meeting the state’s clean energy targets via less expensive, third-party solar and onshore wind projects in Dominion and Appalachian Power service territories. 

“During a two-month legislative session, it’s difficult to get all the information out there,” Allmond said. “The extended forum of the commission allows us to get our data out there and make our case, and then for the opponents to rebut it.”

As the commission adapts and grows, it can “do legislative committees’ homework in the off-season,” he added.

At issue with the competitive procurement bill this session was how many third-party projects the utilities would include in their renewable energy portfolios. After legislators green-lighted the bold Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020, regulators capped them at 35%. Proponents of the original legislation called for that 35% to act as a floor instead of a ceiling. Utilities balked at the initial bill, but pushed back vociferously when that figure was bumped up to 45% in a substitute bill.

The two sides also sparred over how quickly to forge ahead with a provision for a fivefold increase in the percentage of distributed energy generated by small-scale solar and solar storage projects.

Solar installers are on the verge of exceeding the 1% renewable portfolio limit included in the state’s clean energy law because of customer demand for closer-to-home energy. Bumping that upward to 5% is an incentive to let Virginia veer away from a more costly utility-only approach.

“I don’t think we are worlds apart in our negotiations,” Allmond said. “We have room to come together.”

While he isn’t clear on every procedural detail, he’s hoping that suggestions the commission forwards to the relevant committees can be a starting point for legislation next January.

“Legislators might be more comfortable with recommendations vetted by the commission,” he said.

Relatedly, on the offshore wind front, advocates are encouraged that a version of Senate Bill 578 has the potential to re-emerge next year. It was designed to enable private developers to compete with Dominion on offshore wind procurement for projects serving Virginia.

The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee’s decision to quash it in late January followed intense lobbying from Dominion to protect its monopoly.

Democratic Sen. Creigh Deeds, the bill’s sponsor and commerce committee chairman, had joined advocates in claiming that such competition would provide a swifter, cheaper, more transparent, and less risky path to meet or exceed the target of 5,200 megawatts of offshore wind by 2032 outlined in the four-year-old Virginia Clean Economy Act.

“We hope that Virginia’s Commission of Electric Utility Regulation will give these issues careful review later this year, ” Evan Vaughan, executive director of the Maryland-based Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition Action, said in an interview.

Surovell, of Northern Virginia, chairs the revamped commission, and Del. Terry Kilgore, who represents the state’s Southwest, also serves on it. The Republican sponsored the House companion bill. Appointed citizen members are required to have expertise in economic development, energy affordability and public utility regulation. 

Advocates: Safeguards being violated

Charlottesville-based Clean Virginia, which focuses on utility transparency, is a strong proponent of the legislation to limit political spending by investor-owned utilities.

Deputy director Cassady Craighill said her organization is grateful legislation led by Surovell last year “gave the commission more teeth” because bills before it are likely to be revived in some fashion instead of being tossed away.

“Yes, it would have been better for House Bill 792 to pass this year,” she said. “But we’re looking at its commission review as a conversation-starter.”

It’s possible, she noted, for the proposal that re-emerges from Surovell’s commission to be just as robust as the original while also more palatable for lawmakers. 

“With any legislative proposal to change the way utilities are regulated, it’s very difficult to introduce it and have it pass in the same year,” Craighill continued, adding that it’s not surprising hurdles arise even when Democrats control both legislative chambers. “Utilities are different from other industries so historically there has needed to be some sort of study done first.”

A Dominion spokesman didn’t weigh in for or against the bill.

“All the political activities listed in HB 792… are already excluded from our rates and are funded by shareholders,” Aaron Ruby said.

However, he also said the measure “goes much further than political activity” excluding “routine business expenses like travel, litigation, etc.”

Ruby was referencing prohibited activities the bill outlines, such as “travel, lodging, or food and beverage expenses for the utility’s board of directors or officers” or “leasing, owning, or chartering an aircraft for the utility’s board of directors or officers.” 

Bill proponents not only disputed Ruby’s claims, but provided evidence that current safeguards were being violated.

Kendl Kobbervig, advocacy director at Clean Virginia, pointed to research by the nonprofit utility watchdog Energy and Policy Institute revealing that Dominion and Appalachian Power sought to charge their customers a combined $10 million in various trade association dues in recent rate cases. Dominion’s share of that dues total was $9 million.

For instance, Dominion wanted customers to pay for $1.3 million to the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric companies. Appalachian Power sought at least $500,000 in dues for the same institute from its Virginia customers.

The Washington, D.C-based trade group has a long record of fighting clean energy policies as well as environmental and public health rules.

“It’s inappropriate for utilities to pass expenses on to customers for trade associations like the Edison Electric Institute that turn around and lobby against climate policy,” Kobbervig said.

SCC utility audits not enough

Virginia’s State Corporation Commission is tasked with regulating monopoly utilities and establishing fair rates. The regulatory body began excluding lobbying costs from customer bills for all utilities in 1984, spokesman Andy Farmer said. In 2018, regulators followed suit with charitable donations.

Despite those rulings, state regulatory auditors have removed close to $10 million from customers’ bills in political or related costs in four rate cases dating back a decade, said Kobbervig, referring to data gathered by the California-based Energy and Policy Institute.

For instance, she pointed to a state audit of a recent Dominion rate case. Utility regulators combed through paperwork to identify $306,000 in charitable contributions and lobbying expenses that Dominion improperly placed in what are called above-the-line accounts.

Kobbervig noted that Dominion also tried to charge customers $5.7 million for charitable contributions and lobbying expenses in a 2021 triennial review, $45,000 for industry dues connected to lobbying in a 2015 biennial review, and $3.9 million for advertising costs in a 2013 biennial review. All those reviews are connected to rate cases.

Those “would have been included in Dominion’s customers’ bills if not for the audit,’ she said. “That is part of a longstanding pattern for Dominion.”

While HB 792 called for barring utilities from recovering advertising costs from customers, Virginia has had that restriction on its books since at least 1996, according to state code.

Delving into Appalachian Power’s 2023 rate case, the Energy and Policy Institute documented that the utility tried to charge ratepayers $926,000 in lobbying activities, advertising expenses and the lobbying portion of industry association dues.

“Right now, we’re relying on SCC staff to catch all of this,” Kobbervig said. “But is that really the way this should be handled?”

State Corporation Commission staffers conduct regulatory audits of a utility’s application for a rate increase, Farmer said. Part of that review includes verifying that costs for lobbying, charitable donations and lobbying aren’t being charged to customers.

“If we discover (they are), then we propose a regulatory accounting adjustment to exclude the costs,” he said. “There are no fines proposed or assessed on the company.”

One crucial piece of HB 792, advocates agreed, would have allowed state regulators to fine utilities for charging customers for prohibited political activities.

Equally important, they said, is a provision requiring utilities to file annual itemized reports clearly stating what charges ratepayers are expected to cover. In addition, the companies would have to list job titles of employees involved with lobbying, trade associations, charity, political litigation and advertising, along with what percentage of their salaries the utilities are seeking to recover from ratepayers.

“Electric utilities have been given monopoly structure and we need to hold them accountable,” said Veazey, of Solar United Neighbors. “What’s important is transparency.”

Whatever becomes of the bill, Virginia’s attempt to clamp down on utilities isn’t the first. Colorado, Connecticut and Maine adopted similar measures last year.

In neighboring Maryland this session, legislators are considering the Utility Transparency and Accountability Act. As well, proposals are pending before legislators in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio.

“These efforts across the country tie into preventing utility shenanigans,” Veazey said. “If utilities have all of this money to spend on public relations or lobbying, you could argue that they could lower people’s bills or do more to advance clean energy.”

Rebooted commission could breathe new life into bills challenging Virginia’s largest utility is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This article was originally published by the Georgia Recorder

A push to expand community solar in Georgia is running into opposition from the state’s largest electric utility, which has been under pressure in recent years to increase rooftop solar.

Proposals filed in both chambers have sparked interest at the committee level, with those talks set to continue this week. But a key deadline for legislation to pass out of at least one chamber is quickly approaching. 

“Let’s show the rest of the world why Georgia is still the No. 1 place to do business, and we simply can’t do that without more affordable energy,” one of the sponsors, Dallas Republican Sen. Jason Anavitarte, said to his colleagues.

A similar House version is getting attention, too, and is back up for discussion this week.

The House bill’s sponsor, Concord Republican Rep. Beth Camp, said large-scale solar operations are not appealing in her district, but small-scale projects like what is envisioned under the bill are.

“There are people that want to do this,” she said.  

The proposals would allow developers to participate in a community solar program under the state Public Service Commission and let them build small solar arrays on Georgia Power’s turf. Utility customers would be able to subscribe for a portion of the generation output and receive a credit on their electricity bill.

Proponents argue the program would drive down rates overall at a time when the cost of being a Georgia Power customer is on the rise while boosting clean energy access to more Georgians.

“Real community solar is an essential part of the solar-for-all puzzle in Georgia,” said Jennette Gayer, who is state director for advocacy group Environment Georgia. “So many people in Georgia miss out on solar’s benefits because they are renters or their roof is too shady.”

The Environment Georgia Research and Policy Center released a report last week that says Georgia now produces enough energy from small- and medium- sized rooftop scale solar arrays to power about 36,000 homes. But the state is running in the middle of the pack when it comes to growth of small-scale solar over the last decade.

Georgia Power has a popular “net metering” rooftop solar program that is limited to 5,000 households.

Supporters of the so-called “homegrown solar act” also cite Georgia Power’s disclosure last year that the utility expects an energy shortfall as the state continues to roll out economic development projects. The utility has proposed generating much of the power needed through fossil fuel sources.

“We’re trying to help with the energy crisis, candidly,” said Steve Butler, a spokesman for the Georgia Solar Energy Industries Association. “This is something our state could use right now and as quick as possible, but we understand that there’s going to be traditional things that we’re kind of infringing upon. And that’s really the problem. This has worked extremely well all over the country. It’s really tradition that we’re fighting here today.”

But representatives from Georgia Power countered that the proposal would shift costs to other users.

“This is a solution in search of a problem. Our renewable growth is the envy of the United States,” said Wilson Mallard, director of renewable development at Georgia Power. Mallard said the utility is “adamantly opposed to this bill.”

A representative of the Public Service Commission also says the regulatory body also has concerns and says the program is likely to cause confusion among ratepayers.

“When first discussed this bill only included nonprofits, churches and government entities, but as written it potentially includes almost 2.8 million Georgia Power customers,” said Reece McAlister, the commission’s executive director.

But Bob Sherrier, staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said there would be safeguards in place to prevent costs from shifting. The Public Service Commission, which regulates Georgia Power, would set the bill credit amount for customers, as it regularly does in rate cases.

“If Georgia Power can show with evidence in a hearing in front of the commission that there is some shifting of costs between customer classes, then this permits them to impose fees for that actual cost,” Sherrier said. 

Crossover Day, when a bill must clear at least one chamber to have a smooth path to the governor’s desk, is Feb. 29. 

Republican-backed community solar bills face pushback from Georgia utility is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.