Dominion Virginia Power Proposes Building $1.1 Billion Power Station in Brunswick County
Project Would be Single Largest Economic Development Project in County’s History
600 Jobs Would be Created During Construction; 30 Permanent Positions; Economic Impact in County of $73 million a Year During Construction; $30 Million a Year After
RICHMOND – Governor Bob McDonnell joined Dominion chairman, president and chief executive officer Thomas F. Farrell II, local Brunswick County officials and legislators from the region as the company announced today that its Dominion Virginia Power subsidiary will propose building a $1.1 billion combined-cycle, natural gas-fired power station in Brunswick County that will generate electricity for customers by the summer of 2016.
Speaking about the proposal, the Governor noted, “The proposed Brunswick County Power Station has the potential to be the largest single economic development project in the history of Brunswick County. The Station will create good paying jobs for local residents, both during construction and after. And it will generate cleaner energy to help meet the increasing demands of our growing Commonwealth in the years ahead. This is a positive announcement for the economy of Southern Virginia, and for the energy needs of the entire state.”
“The Brunswick County site offers us an ideal location to generate electricity to serve Southside Virginia and Hampton Roads reliably and will help us close the gap of 4,000 megawatts in peak demand that our customers are expected to need within the next decade,” Tom Farrell said.
“We expect this highly efficient new power station will provide savings for our customers much the same as we are seeing from the smaller Bear Garden Power Station that went online last summer in Buckingham County. This also is the best, most cost-effective and reliable way to meet the latest federal clean-air standards.”
Artist’s rendering of proposed energy plant.
From Dominion Virginia Power
Dominion expects to ask the Virginia State Corporation Commission later this year for permission to build the Brunswick County Power Station. With a generating capacity of more than 1,300 megawatts, the station would produce enough electricity to power more than 325,000 homes. Output from the Brunswick County facility would replace the electricity generated by coal units at two eastern Virginia stations that are planned to be closed for economic reasons and to help meet customers’ growing demand for electricity.
Dominion announced last September that it would likely close older coal-fired units at Chesapeake Energy Center in Chesapeake and at Yorktown Power Station. It is more cost-effective to close the units than install emissions control equipment necessary to meet new federal environmental regulations. The change from coal to natural gas to meet customer needs will result in a net environmental benefit for the Commonwealth.
PJM Interconnection LLC, the regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states, including Virginia, and the District of Columbia, reported in its annual forecast that customers will demand 4,000 megawatts more of electricity from Dominion during peak demand in 2022 than it does today.
If approved by state regulators, Brunswick County Power Station would be built on a 205-acre site on U.S. Route 58 east of Lawrenceville. It would be the largest single economic development project ever in the county. At least 600 workers would be on site at the peak of construction. The station will provide about 30 full-time jobs and pay annual property taxes of between $3.5 and $4 million when operational.
Dominion already has received the necessary conditional use permits from the Brunswick County Board of Supervisors to build the station and has applied to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for the air permit.
Dominion is one of the nation’s largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 28,000 megawatts of generation, 11,000 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipeline and 6,300 miles of electric transmission lines. Dominion operates the nation’s largest natural gas storage system with 947 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 15 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company’s website at http://www.dom.com/.