Dominion Energy provides electric service to the area of northeastern North Carolina appearing in blue. The white hyphenated line is the Virginia border. The company notified North Carolina customers of a temporary rate change, effective Nov. 1, on Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (Screenshot by Outer Banks Insider of Dominion Energy’s interactive service area map.)
By Corinne Saunders
Dominion Energy customers in North Carolina will see temporarily lower electric bills starting in November, following a recent ruling by the North Carolina Utilities Commission.
The Oct. 14 ruling is not final, but as it stands, outlines temporary savings of $5.38 per month on a 1,000-kilowatt-hour residential customer bill. The approximately 4% decrease would take that bill from $133.11 to $127.73 per month.
Those savings are based on the interim rates for a typical residential customer’s monthly bill, Cherise M. Newsome, senior communications specialist for Dominion Energy, said in an email.
“An additional fuel rate decrease will go into effect on Feb. 1, 2025, further reducing the typical residential customer’s monthly power bill by $6.89, for a combined $12.27 monthly decrease,” Newsome added.
Dominion Energy, based in Richmond, Virginia, serves over 127,000 electric customers in a territory covering about 2,600 square miles over 21 counties of northeastern North Carolina, according to Newsome. Its service territory includes most of Currituck County and the northeastern part of Dare County, according to the company’s service area map.
Dominion emailed notice to its North Carolina customers Monday evening notice that the “temporary net decrease in customer rates” takes effect Nov. 1.
“This temporary change will reflect the net of an increase in annual non-fuel base revenues of $36.8 million, and a decrease in annual base fuel revenues of $46.3 million,” the email said.
The email also included a link to the four-page appendix of the Oct. 14 ruling, which is the “Public Notice of Temporary Rates.” The full ruling is seven pages.
Jeffrey A. Hughes, a commissioner on the North Carolina Utilities Commission, concurred with the ruling. However, he wrote a note at the end, suggesting Dominion provide “a more accessible summary” of its temporary rate change instead of the “highly legalistic language that many customers may not clearly understand.”
Outer Banks Insider on Tuesday asked Dominion for a basic summary of its email.
Newsome explained that two factors resulted in the net decrease. Base rates are slightly increasing, reflecting investments Dominion made in clean energy and reliability. But there is “a significant decrease in the fuel charge due to lower-than-expected fuel costs,” she wrote in an email response.
Final rate to be determined
The temporary rate changes “remain subject to the Commission’s final determination of the just and reasonable rates to be charged by DENC [Dominion Energy North Carolina] on a permanent basis,” the ruling stated.
The North Carolina Utilities Commission will issue a final order in Dominion’s “2024 base and fuel rate cases at a later date,” Newsome said in her email. No date is listed in the ruling.
“As a part of the interim approval, coal ash removal costs will shift from base rates to a new annual rider that will also go into effect on Feb. 1, 2025,” Newsome said. “While the new rider will slightly offset some of the recent rate decreases, it will still preserve significant monthly savings for customers.”
A rider is a specific increase or decrease in rates per a component of a utility’s costs, according to the North Carolina Utilities Commission website.
“The interim rates balance the interests of all stakeholders and support ongoing investments to expand clean energy and strengthen grid reliability for North Carolina customers,” Newsome said.
If the final rates are approved to take effect next February, Dominion Energy’s residential rates will be about 25% lower than the forecasted national average and will be about 15% lower than the forecasted South Atlantic average, she said.
Dominion notes its environmental stewardship efforts on its website. The company has the second-largest solar portfolio in the country, installed the first wind turbine in U.S. federal waters and has a goal of achieving net zero carbon and methane across its electric and natural gas operations by 2050, according to www.dom.com.
Ongoing actions
The Oct. 14 ruling is one in a series of formal actions that began with Dominion’s March 28 filing of an application to adjust its electric rates in North Carolina. The North Carolina Utilities Commission on April 15 suspended the proposed rates for up to 270 days.
On Oct. 9, Dominion filed a motion to implement temporary rates as well as an undertaking motion.
The ruling approved Dominion’s “financial undertaking to make refund to customers of any amount of temporary rates determined by the Commission in its final order to be excessive,” its text said.
It remains to be seen what will happen with some of Dominion’s proposed specific rate changes.
Dominion in its March filing proposed a new $30.88 monthly charge for physical meter readings for customers opting out of smart meter installations. Another proposal filed is for experimental rates that would differ seasonally, involve a “critical peak energy charge” and be used with 500 voluntary customers over a four-year period beginning Feb. 1, 2025.
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