The aging coal-fueled units at Dominion Virginia Power’s Yorktown power plant ran a lot less often in this summer’s swelter than they used to — but even that use could be a signal of major power shortages next year when the plant is completely offline.
Federal regulators this year ordered the utility to run the Yorktown units only when necessary to make sure there was no risk of blackouts or power shortages. Dominion’s latest quarterly review of power use reported that it fired up the two plants on 20 days in July and August.
“Yorktown’s coal units were needed for reliability to keep the lights burning on the Peninsula,” Dominion spokesman Dan Genest said, when asked about their use this summer.
If the Yorktown plants had not run on those occasions, any failure on the high voltage lines serving the Peninsula could have forced PJM — the operator of the electric grid serving 13 states from New Jersey west to Illinois and south to North Carolina — to order interruptions of electric service, PJM spokesman Ray Dotter said.
Once workhorses for the utility, the two nearly 60-year-old units violate current standards that limit the emission of mercury and toxic gases. Dominion needed special permission from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to run them, and that permission expires in April.
To replace them, the company wants to build a $179 million high voltage transmission line across the James River, from Surry County to James City County near Skiffes Creek, but it needs Army Corps of Engineers permission to do so. The EPA permit specifically says the Yorktown units can only be used to fill in for the Surry-to-Skiffes Creek transmission line or for power emergencies.
Its regulators at the State Corporation Commission have ruled that the line is necessary to meet power demand on the Peninsula, and Dominion has said the Peninsula could suffer rolling blackouts as often as 60 to 80 times a year beginning next spring because it can’t start building the transmission line.
In a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers last month, the company reported that PJM ordered it to run the newer of the two coal units several times since mid-July to maintain power supply on its system. It said it ran that unit for a total of 84 days between May 2015 and April 2016, and the other for 16 days, adding that “the actual run-time of these units is very much in line with the estimated 60-80 days of risk.”
Opponents of the project say Dominion’s warning of blackouts is a scare tactic. They say the project would blight the view at Jamestown and other historic sites in James City County and that there are alternatives that would address the region’s power needs.
But the only alternative the Corps has so far said seems viable — running a line down the Peninsula from Richmond’s eastern suburbs through Charles City and James City counties — costs 21 percent more, crosses nearly 10 times as many archaeological sites, runs close to seven times as many homes, impacts more freshwater wetlands and affects two protected species of plants as well as bald eagles, Dominion told the Corps.
The new constraint on the Yorktown coal units’ operations summer posed a challenge for the utility this summer, it said.
Electricity use hit a record 28.2 million megawatt hours during the July-through-September quarter, Dominion Virginia Power reported. The previous quarterly record was set in the summer of 2010. Consumption in August hit a monthly record of 10 million megawatt hours, higher than the previous peak hit when the January 2014 polar vortex hammered the state.
“Simply put, this summer demonstrates clearly that there will not be blackouts and brownouts if (Yorktown) is not running,” said Margaret Nelson Fowler, a co-founder and trustee of the Save the James Alliance, which opposes the Skiffes Creek transmission line.
Opponents of the project say Dominion has overstated peak demand, understated the potential effect of energy-saving programs and hasn’t considered the role the oil-fired unit at Yorktown could play.
In addition to running the Yorktown coal units this summer, Dominion took control of air conditioning units of the more than 100,000 customers who signed up for its “smart cooling” program on 10 days this summer. Under that program, customers agree to let Dominion cycle their air conditioners on and off to reduce energy usage when systemwide demand peaks. In return, customers receive a $40 credit, while their reduced electricity use should also mean savings.
The company ran its oil-fired unit at Yorktown four times this summer. Federal regulators say that unit can run only rarely, while Dominion officials say it takes so long to fire up that it can’t really help when demand for electricity spikes suddenly.
Genest said one help this summer was that while demand was high, it did not reach any one-day or one-hour record.
Ress can be reached by phone at 757-247-4535.
