Dominion seeks another rate hike as lawmakers hold energy town hall

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — As winter approaches and families prepare for higher heating costs, concerns are growing over the affordability of electricity in Chesterfield County, especially as Dominion Energy seeks approval for another increase to customers’ monthly bills.

“People have been concerned with affordability first of all and being able to heat and cool your home is critical,” Del. Debra Gardner said.

Gardner says she’s increasingly hearing from constituents who are struggling to make ends meet as their utility bills continue to rise. Beyond affordability, residents are also questioning the reliability of their electricity.

“Our constituents have had questions about, of course, energy and utility bills and why their utility bills are fluctuating up and down, about reliability. Are they always going to be able to turn the heat on and get heat or turn the lights on and get lights?” Gardner said.

Those concerns come as Dominion Energy is asking the State Corporation Commission (SCC) to approve another increase to customers’ electric bills.

Under the proposal, a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month would pay an additional $3.46 monthly, totaling more than $41 a year.

The proposed increase is part of a much larger request from Dominion to recover more than $463 million through what’s known as its Rider DIST charge.

The largest portion of that request, more than $230 million, would go toward recovering costs associated with the company’s underground power line program.

As part of its next phase, Dominion plans to bury nearly 300 miles of outage-prone power lines across Virginia in an effort to improve reliability.

According to the company’s filing, those lines have experienced more than 4,300 outages over the past decade.

If approved by state regulators, the new charge could take effect as early as June 1, 2027, and would apply to the rate year ending May 31, 2028.

But with other recent electric bill increases already weighing on household budgets, many residents say they’re barely getting by.

Gardner says those financial pressures are particularly concerning as temperatures drop and families begin using more energy to heat their homes.

In an effort to get ahead of those concerns, Gardner is hosting a town hall Thursday evening to connect residents with energy representatives and provide information about ways to save money while keeping their power on.

“Having information about that has been one of the issues that when I knock doors people want to know or when I see people they say, ‘Alright, do you have information about this?’ So what I tried to do is bring together all the people involved in energy and to be able to allow my constituents to ask their questions directly to the people who can give them the factual answers,” Gardner said.

The town hall aims to give Chesterfield residents an opportunity to ask questions directly to those involved in energy services as concerns over affordability and reliability continue.

The Town Hall is at Braynt and Stratton College. It starts at 6 p.m. and lasts until 7:30 p.m. It is free to anyone who wants to attend.

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