Affordability.
Virginia voters of all political stripes put an exclamation point on one of this election season’s most repeated watchwords when close to two-thirds of them told pollsters that their electric bills are too darn high.
What’s to blame? Growing demand for energy, monopolistic utilities and profit-driven power companies were the top three answers cited by voters.
And who should address those rising costs? Eight out of 10 respondents—a majority mix of independents, Democrats and Republicans—said it should be a primary concern for state lawmakers, according to a recent poll of Virginia voters conducted for clean energy advocates.
Such angst about the price of keeping the lights on looms especially large as the State Corporation Commission reviews Florida-based NextEra Energy’s $67 billion pursuit of Dominion Energy.
The rub is that neither average citizens nor legislators have the final say on whether a marriage proposed in mid-May to create the nation’s biggest electric utility should be consummated.
A decision – expected by January—is solely up to three utility regulators in Richmond.
That backdrop prompted the Virginia Distributed Solar Alliance to commission an energy-centric poll of 1,107 voters statewide conducted Aug. 26 to 31 by Embold Research. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
Seven of the 22 questions drilled down on the potential merger of the two utility behemoths. Other topics covered electricity costs, data centers, the electric grid and obstacles homeowners, schools and businesses encounter when installing solar panels and batteries.
Alliance president Tony Smith said he was shocked that three in four voters had heard “a little” or “nothing at all” about the merger because his colleagues are obsessed with it. Most of those respondents live in territory served by Dominion, the commonwealth’s dominant utility.
“People involved in the energy field think of this merger as a meteor-from-space event because of its scale, the short timeframe to evaluate it and its potential consequences,” Smith said in an interview.
Among all respondents, 36% said they were somewhat or strongly opposed to the merger, while 59% were not sure where they stood.
As a follow-up to the merger awareness question, Embold asked participants to respond to six statements gathered from press releases and news accounts.
For instance, one highlighted the companies’ early pledge of $2.25 billion in bill credits for Dominion customers in Virginia, and North and South Carolina distributed over two years. Another noted NextEra’s unsuccessful attempts to acquire utilities in Texas, South Carolina and Hawaii.
The “not sure” vote on the merger dropped to 27% and opposition almost doubled to 63% after respondents heard those statements.
Sweetening the pot
Both CEOs of the energy companies also seemed to recognize flagging support for the acquisition. Dominion leader Bob Blue and NextEra chief John Ketchum co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post with the headline “Virginians spoke about the NextEra-Dominion merger. We listened.”
The executives said feedback from fielding dozens of questions during a recent statewide listening tour prompted them to strengthen the original package of customer benefits presented in May.
For instance, they proposed extending a shareholder-funded $10 monthly bill credit for Virginia households from two years to four years.
“That is what this combination can help create and what this new proposal is designed to deliver: more bill relief, more jobs, stronger customer protections, more affordable energy built in Virginia and a utility that remains local and accountable,” they concluded.
In August, Delegate Richard “Rip” Sullivan told the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism that he considered the initial rebates to be an opening offer.
“Doubling the offer sounds really good, but $10 wasn’t very much,” the Fairfax Democrat said in a follow-up interview. “Does $20 get it done? I don’t know. Whether we like it or not, the SCC is responsible for making that decision.”
The poll asked respondents to rank seven conditions regulators should require to greenlight the merger. “Guarantee that customer rates will not rise” was ranked first. A rebate wasn’t mentioned as an option.
Merger aside, Smith said he was heartened that voters champion smaller-scale solar that can save ratepayers money. For example, more than 70% back state laws that ease the path for schools and government agencies to install rooftop arrays. Another 62% support busting barriers that prevent homeowners, schools and businesses from connecting their solar panels to the electric grid.
“Across party lines and utility regions, voters support common sense solutions to hold utilities accountable to lower costs and use the electric grid more effectively,” he said. “Utilities, regulators and legislators need to respond.”
Missed opportunity – or not?
Roughly two-thirds of survey respondents urged state lawmakers to weigh in on the merger. In addition, 59% wanted regulators’ six-month review period to be extended.
After the companies announced the deal, critics urged legislators to meet in a special session and add extra protections for ratepayers to the existing law.
That never happened. “The time to act on that has passed,” Smith said.
At the behest of legislators and advocates, regulators have scheduled three rare in-person sessions for Dominion ratepayers to testify. The first one is set for Nov. 5 at the SCC’s Richmond headquarters.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell said Virginia’s merger law is robust enough to allow for strict SCC scrutiny.
That statute “sets an unusually protective standard,” the Fairfax Democrat wrote in a Richmond Times-Dispatch column arguing that legislative intervention wasn’t necessary.
“To protect Virginians from the risks of the sale of our utility franchise,” he concluded, the state “needs the commission to use the (law) it has fully.”
Reach Elizabeth McGowan at Elizabeth.McGowan@whro.org.