Commission Schedules Technical Conference on Impact of Large Electric Customers

RICHMOND – The State Corporation Commission has scheduled a technical conference to explore the effects of the increasing number of large-use retail electric customers on Virginia’s utilities, ratepayers and power grid.

The December 16, 2024, proceeding will consider current and future challenges presented by the growth of such “hyperscale” power users across the Commonwealth. Large power users such as data centers could bring an “unprecedented” amount of new load for electric utilities, creating complications and risks the utilities have not previously encountered, the Commissioners said. 

The technical conference is intended to identify potential frameworks that facilitate service; address risks and issues of the increased usage; are just and reasonable to current and future customers; and meet current Virginia statutes. In addition, this proceeding may examine, to the extent relevant, issues related to the co-location of generation resources at new large-use customer load sites.
The Commission also identified three main questions to be addressed: 

1. Should the Commission establish a tariff framework and terms of service for these large-scale customers?
2. Should certain transmission costs be directly assigned to a new large-use customer class?
3. Should certain generation costs be directly assigned to a new large-use customer class?

Anyone interested in participating as a panelist should submit a self-nomination by email to tech-conf-PUR-2024-00144@scc.virginia.gov no later than October 22, 2024. All submissions should refer to Case No. PUR-2024-00144. Following the technical conference, it is the Commission's intent to invite all interested persons to submit post-technical conference comments addressing some or all of the issues raised during the technical conference.

The technical conference will be open to the public and streamed as a webcast.

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Contact: Greg Weatherford, 804-371-9141

PUR-2024-00144-Scheduling-Order-and-Notice