Here is the link for your Reps and information on the bills. http://
Erica wrote: "ALERT ~ HEADS UP VA!!! Contact your Reps both House and Senate and tell them NO on these bad bill
still let them know how you feel. Still needs to pass the House. 2/1/14 RTD :
HB 1059 Electric utility regulation; generation facility cost recovery.
HB 1059, puts both nuclear and wind on the same bill. Oppose this bill, because they want us to pay for a new nuclear reactor at North Anna. Yes we want renewables/wind, but no new nuclear reactors! http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-
still let them know how you feel. Still needs to pass the House. 2/1/14 RTD :
HB 1059 Electric utility regulation; generation facility cost recovery.
HB 1059, puts both nuclear and wind on the same bill. Oppose this bill, because they want us to pay for a new nuclear reactor at North Anna. Yes we want renewables/wind, but no new nuclear reactors! http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-
This is what happens when a state allows Corporation to charge customers for things not built:
Duke Energy customers will pay $108 million a year for canceled nuclear plants
Senate wants 'comprehensive review' of Levy County nuclear project
Settlement likely to end inquiries into Duke Energy nuclear plants
Why can't all Florida businesses charge advance fees?
St. Petersburg lawmaker calls for PSC study of Levy nuclear plant costs
Fasano wants Progress to explain botched nuclear plant job
Progress Energy raises price tag, delays start date of Levy nuclear plant
Senate committee hears arguments over advance fee for building nuclear plants
Senate panel advances bill to put brakes on nuclear fees
Thank you, Tallahassee, for making us pay so much for nothing
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/duke-energy-to-cancel-proposed-levy-county-nuclear-plant-fasano-says/2134287
Duke Energy customers will pay $108 million a year for canceled nuclear plants
Exelon Corp. (NYSE: EXC) on August 28 said it is halting efforts to gain initial federal regulatory approvals for new nuclear construction in Victoria County, Texas.
The company said it has notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that it will withdraw its Early Site Permit application for an 11,500-acre tract southeast of Victoria. Exelon said the action is in response to low natural gas prices and economic and market conditions that have made construction of new merchant nuclear power plants in competitive markets uneconomical now and for the foreseeable future.
Activists See U.S. Nuclear Industry Starting to Crumble
ENERGY BILLSProposed utility law could have big impact
Measure offers benefits for Va. Power; opponents cite costs, effect on SCC
Posted: Saturday, February 1, 2014 12:00 am | Updated: 11:38 pm, Sat Feb 1, 2014.
Proposed changes to Virginia’s energy utility laws now making their way through the General Assembly would encourage Dominion Virginia Power to continue development of a new nuclear power plant to meet growing electricity demand, the company says.
But those changes also could cost the company’s ratepayers millions more than they should be paying for power, while reducing the State Corporation Commission’s power to regulate the state’s electric utilities, according to opponents.
But those changes also could cost the company’s ratepayers millions more than they should be paying for power, while reducing the State Corporation Commission’s power to regulate the state’s electric utilities, according to opponents.
The changes could affect when and how money already spent on the development of Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed North Anna 3 nuclear unit can be collected from the utility’s ratepayers.
If the General Assembly adopts the changes, opponents argue, ratepayers would start paying for an expensive power plant that may never be constructed while the Richmond-based company avoids any future ability of the State Corporation Commission to direct refunds to customers in 2015 or, if necessary, reductions in electricity rates in 2017, when the commission reviews the company’s rates.
With more than 2.3 million customers, Dominion Virginia Power is the state’s largest electric utility. The company also is the largest contributor to General Assembly political campaigns, making more than $800,000 in campaign contributions in 2013.
The SCC regulates the three investor-owned electric companies — Dominion Virginia Power, Appalachian Power Co. and Kentucky Utilities — that operate in the state, as well as the 13 member-owned electric cooperatives.
Dominion Virginia Power has already spent about $570 million toward the development of its proposed North Anna 3 nuclear plant, according to Thomas P. Wohlfarth, Dominion Resources Inc.’s senior vice president of regulatory affairs. Dominion Resources is the power company’s parent corporation. Normally such costs are recovered from customers after the SCC approves construction of a power plant.
The proposed law would allow Dominion Virginia Power to write off 70 percent of the $570 million as an expense, added to the company’s costs in 2013 and 2014.
“This saves customers money by making the development costs eligible for expense reimbursement only,” without having to pay the utility’s allowed 11 percent rate of return in future rate charges, the company said in a statement.
“It’s costing less because it will be written off with no impact on base rates and will make a future (rate adjustment) rider cheaper,” said David Botkins, spokesman for the utility.
However, the State Corporation Commission in November estimated that the company is earning about $280 million a year more than it needs to cover its cost of service and earn a fair rate of return on its investment.
“The idea we have excess earnings is hypothetical,” Wohlfarth said.
“That’s a blue-sky forecast,” he said. “If you look at the history of our company, it’s just not blue sky. Bad stuff always happens.”
If the SCC’s estimate of the company’s earnings continues to hold true for Dominion Virginia Power’s 2013-14 rate review period, the company could have to refund much of those possible over-collections back to customers.
But being allowed to write off North Anna development expenses could reduce the chance of such refunds.
“By expensing such capital costs in just two years, Dominion can reduce or eliminate the likelihood of customer refunds in that 2015 case and a rate reduction in its next one, in 2017,” said attorney
Edward L. Petrini, representing industrial customers such as DuPont, Honeywell, Anheuser-Busch and Newport News Shipbuilding, in a statement to legislators.
Edward L. Petrini, representing industrial customers such as DuPont, Honeywell, Anheuser-Busch and Newport News Shipbuilding, in a statement to legislators.
“You do not have to do this to build North Anna 3,” said Stephen Haner, a lobbyist for Newport News Shipbuilding, the state’s largest industrial employer. “They’re doing this, in my opinion, to game the next rate case.”
Building North Anna 3, Wohlfarth said, “would be very difficult to move forward without the regulatory certainty that we need from this legislation on the treatment of development costs.”
The proposed legislation also contains a subtle change to the state’s electric utility regulation law that opponents say could whittle the authority of the State Corporation Commission to determine what constitutes a utility’s reasonable costs.
“Would it make any sense to limit the commission’s power to review and determine whether literally billions of dollars in utility costs are reasonable and prudent,” Petrini said. “The commission’s current authority provides a critically important safety net for customers. It should not be so limited.
But that’s precisely what Dominion proposes to do.”
But that’s precisely what Dominion proposes to do.”
That assertion is simply wrong, Wohlfarth said. “It actually is affirming the commission’s authority over the reasonableness and prudence of costs in rate proceedings.”
The proposed change “is eliminating language that can be interpreted as giving the commission the authority to override specific policy of the General Assembly as prescribed in the law,” he said.
HB 1059 Electric utility regulation; generation facility cost recovery. Vote NO!
Introduced by: Terry G. Kilgore | all patrons ... notes | add to my profiles
SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:
Electric utilities; generation facility cost recovery. Limits the portion of the costs incurred by an investor-owned electric utility between July 1, 2007, and December 31, 2013, in developing a nuclear power facility or an offshore wind project that are recoverable through a rate adjustment clause to 30 percent of such amount. The remaining 70 percent of such costs will be recoverable only through existing base rates in the test periods under review in the utility's next biennial review filed after July 1, 2014. All of the costs incurred after December 31, 2013, will be recoverable through a rate adjustment clause as may be approved by the State Corporation Commission. The measure also amends a provision that currently states that nothing precludes the Commission from determining the reasonableness or prudence of any cost incurred or projected to be incurred by a utility. As revised, contradictory provisions that limit the Commission's ability to make such determinations will control.FULL TEXT
HISTORY
- 01/08/14 House: Presented and ordered printed 14103508D
- 01/08/14 House: Referred to Committee on Commerce and Labor
- 01/15/14 House: Assigned C & L sub: Special Subcommittee on Energy
- 01/30/14 House: Subcommittee recommends reporting with amendment(s) (10-Y 2-N)
Virginia Senate Bill 459 Part A Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Uv-s-flKcg&list=PL_kG76Xcvg_YrFgnZWrXE8E8Ptk0cvWzD&index=1
Dominion bill kills possible credit for customers, critics say
January 27, 2014|By Dave Ress, dress@dailypress.com RICHMOND —
A bill talked up as a way of dealing with an accounting headache at Dominion Virginia Power could end up costing its customers hundreds of millions of dollars of potential credits, critics told a state
Senate Commerce and Labor Committee Monday. But Dominion, which has donated $477,000 to state Senate candidates since the last election for Senate seats in 2011, got the change it wanted, by a 15-0 vote.
Doing so means the company's earnings would take a hit.
And that's a problem, said Newport News Shipbuilding lobbyist Steve Haner, because the power company's profits are otherwise so high that state law would require a rebate to its customers.
"The shipyard knows something about nuclear plants. We make nuclear plants and the government pays us a lot of money, but they don't make payments to us until we start building," he said.
But Dominion hasn't even definitively decided to go ahead with the North Anna 3 work, Haner said
"What they're asking for is for us to pay for a new nuclear plant before it is built," he added.
The issue, he said, is that the write-off Dominion seeks permission to make would reduce Dominion's reported profits over the next two years by $420 million. A write-off is an accounting recognition of the reduced value of an investment that a company doesn't expect to make money on in the foreseeable future.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, said he introduced the bill in order to let Dominion level out the cost of its $30 million to $40 million refuelings at its nuclear plants.
But he said he added the language about writing off the engineering costs in order to provide an incentive for development of nuclear power.
"If we want to assure sustantainable energy, then we need to encourage people to build these plants," he said.
State Sen. Phillip Puckett, D-Russell, said he was bothered by the way the write off would cut into the profit figures on which rates going forward could be set.
"That doesn't seem fair to me," he said. "I guess my vote's too little to change a thing, but you ought to be straight and fair with people paying the bill."
He voted with the other 14 members of the committee to recommend the bill to the full Senate, however.
http://articles.dailypress.com/2014-01-27/news/dp-nws-ga-dominion-power-20140127_1_dominion-virginia-power-nuclear-plants-customers
2014 SESSION
SB 459 Electric utility regulation; recovery of nuclear refueling costs.
01/27/14 Senate: Reported from Commerce and Labor with substitute (15-Y 0-N)
YEAS--Watkins, Colgan, Saslaw, Norment, Stosch, Edwards, Wagner, Newman, Puckett, Martin, Obenshain, Stuart, McWaters, Stanley, Alexander--15.
NAYS--0.
ABSTENTIONS--
HB 1059 Electric utility regulation; generation facility cost recovery. : Vote NO
Introduced by: Terry G. Kilgore | all patrons ... notes | add to my profiles
SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:
Electric utilities; generation facility cost recovery. Limits the portion of the costs incurred by an investor-owned electric utility between July 1, 2007, and December 31, 2013, in developing a nuclear power facility or an offshore wind project that are recoverable through a rate adjustment clause to 30 percent of such amount. The remaining 70 percent of such costs will be recoverable only through existing base rates in the test periods under review in the utility's next biennial review filed after July 1, 2014. All of the costs incurred after December 31, 2013, will be recoverable through a rate adjustment clause as may be approved by the State Corporation Commission. The measure also amends a provision that currently states that nothing precludes the Commission from determining the reasonableness or prudence of any cost incurred or projected to be incurred by a utility. As revised, contradictory provisions that limit the Commission's ability to make such determinations will control.FULL TEXT
HISTORY
- 01/08/14 House: Presented and ordered printed 14103508D
- 01/08/14 House: Referred to Committee on Commerce and Labor
- 01/15/14 House: Assigned C & L sub: Special Subcommittee on Energy
- 01/30/14 House: Subcommittee recommends reporting with amendment(s) (10-Y 2-N)
