The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) targets having 60 percent of Virginia’s electrons ‘clean’ (e.g., low-to-no carbon emissions on generation) by 2036 and 100 percent by 2050. While finally, if passed, legislating a clean power (more prosperous and resilient) future for the Commonwealth, this bill would still leave Virginia a middling player (not a leader) in state clean power targets nationally and would fall far short of providing the sort of steps that appear required to address and mitigate climate risks. It is thus worth asking, is that 60×36 (not quite a rallying cry) an ambitious move forward, stretching Virginia’s potential, or could Virginia do far better in ‘win-win’ (economic + environmental) terms?
To start, about where is Virginia today?
In 2018, natural gas fueled 53% of Virginia’s electricity net generation, nuclear power provided almost 31%, coal fueled about 10% and renewable resources, primarily biomass, supplied nearly 7%. (Energy Information Administration)
Putting aside for the moment the questionable nature of ‘biomass’, combining nuclear and renewable resources means that roughly 38 percent of the Dominion’s electricity was clean as of the start of 2019. Thus, to hit that 60% target would require a 22% bump in clean electrons share of Virginia’s grid by 2036 compared to 2018’s situation.
How many electrons are we talking about? According to EIA, Virginia uses about 104 terrawatt hours of electricity per annum.
Assuming zero change in electricity demand for simplicity, this means that Virginia would need to add about 23 terrawatt hours (TwH) (or 23,000 gigawatt hours or 23,000,000 megawatt hours or 23,000,000,000 kilowatt hours) of clean electrons to meet those targets. That sounds like a lot … or does it?
Let’s take a look at some recent announcements.
In September 2019, Dominion Virginia Power announced plans for 2.6 gigawatts of offshore wind to be fully operational by 2026. Using a reasonable (and potentially conservative) ballpark capacity factor (the average production across all 8760 hours of the year) of .5, already planned offshore wind will provide 11.4 TwH of clean electrons or almost half the target … by 2027.
Dominion has also announced plans for over 2.5 gigawatts of industrial scale solar projects (with Dominion “to add 3,000 megawatts of new solar and wind generation in Virginia by 2022″ (and, well, very little of that wind by 2022). At a .2 capacity factor, 2.5 gigawatts of solar would be 4.4 TwH of clean electrons by the mid-2020s or about 20% of the requirement to meet the 2036 target.
We are now at 70% of the 2036 targets without leaving Dominion and without projecting beyond already announced projects and plans.
Fairfax County has announced over 100 rooftop solar projects. With perhaps 500 kilowatts, per average, on each site and with that .2 capacity factor, this would add perhaps 0.1 TwH/year (along with clear intentions to add more). Another percent or so hits the dust …
If we went through every announced clean energy project and plan for the coming decade, this initial scratching of the back of the envelope suggests that the 60% target would be met well before the 2030 timeframe. And, of course, that isn’t even considering the certainty of new projects emerging in the intervening time frame.
Hmmm, with this in mind, ask yourself, is that 60×36 (not quite a rallying cry) an ambitious move forward, stretching Virginia’s potential, or could Virginia do far better in ‘win-win’ (economic + environmental) terms?