Conservation and Efficiency
Energy conservation is essential to the Commonwealth's future -- and it's one of Dominion's top priorities. The General Assembly has set an ambitious goal of reducing Virginia's electricity consumption by 10 percent of the amount consumed in 2006 by 2022.
Dominion supports this goal. The company recently asked the State Corporation Commission to approve 12 Energy Efficiency and Demand Response programs to assist customers in conserving energy in their homes and businesses. These programs are projected to save customers $1.2 billion over the next 15 years. And they are expected to reduce the total annual consumption of electricity in Dominion's service area by about 2.4 million megawatt-hours annually by 2024.
The programs include:
- Residential Air Conditioner Cycling Program
- Residential Low-Income Program
- Residential Lighting Program
- Residential ENERGY STAR New Homes Program
- Residential Heat Pump Tune-Up Program
- Residential Refrigerator Turn-In Program
- Residential Heat Pump Upgrade Program
- Commercial Distributed Generation Program
- Commercial Curtailment Service Program
- Commercial HVAC Upgrade Program
- Commercial Lighting Program
- Voltage Conservation Program
The Voltage Conservation Program is one of the key benefits of the company's plan to install "Smart Meters" across our service territory within the next few years. The Smart Meters will produce an automatic energy usage reduction of about 4 percent or more annually for typical residential customers by allowing the company to manage the delivery of energy more efficiently. In the future, Smart Meters will produce many other benefits for customers, including improved communications with Dominion and greater access to rate schedules that allow customers to save money by responding to variable price signals. The company recently applied for a $200 million federal grant to help accelerate deployment of Smart Meters across our service area.
In addition to filing for these programs, Dominion has already initiated Smart Meter installations across portions of the state including Charlottesville. The SmartGrid Charlottesville project will deploy 46,500 Smart Meters in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, and produce immediate benefits for customers through voltage conservation.
Other key elements in the SmartGrid Charlottesville project include: time-based rates, a demonstration project providing periodic reports that show customers how their energy usage compares with other customers, tests of battery storage systems that could promote renewable electricity generation such as solar, and automatic reporting of outages, allowing for quicker restoration of service.
Dominion already gives all customers the ability to improve their home's energy efficiency by sponsoring discounts on compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs purchased at Home Depots throughout our service area. Dominion initially set a target of distributing a total of 1.4 million discounted CFLs through 2009 when it launched the promotion on Oct. 1, 2007. Because of the success in 2007, Dominion increased the 2008 and 2009 CFL sales goal to 2.25 million each year, for a three year total of more than 5 million bulbs. Dominion customers are expected to save $284 million and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 1.5 million tons -- the equivalent of removing 268,354 cars from the road for one year -- if the sales goal of 5 million CFL bulbs were to replace 60-watt incandescent bulbs. Visit Dominion's energy conservation site for more information.
As requested by our customers, Dominion allows it customers to support renewable energy above and beyond our initiatives. By signing up your home or business for Dominion Green Power, you are ensuring that renewable energy is delivered to the electrical grid and you are helping to support new renewable energy facilities. Dominion will purchase renewable energy certificates in the amount specified by participating customers. For more information about the program, see the Frequently Asked Questions.
An Energy Conservation blog, energy calculators, information for kids, and easy conservation tips have also been developed to attract ideas from the public about how to save energy and money while helping the environment.
