Dominion Power 2013 Annual Report Download - page 12

of dollars spent for new and improved
infrastructure, while creating thousands of
construction and permanent jobs, millions of
dollars in additional tax revenue and stable,
reasonable rates that have, for residential
customers, increased only about 1 percent
since 2008 and remain well below the
national and regional averages.
MEETING DEMAND AT VIRGINIA POWER
In 2013 at our Virginia Power electric utility,
we converted three small coal-fired power
stations to use biomass, principally tree
tops and branches that remain unused from
timbering operations, as fuel. These three
stations had become less economical over
the past decade, running only a quarter of
the time just five years ago. For a relatively
small conversion price tag of about
$157 million, the plants provide a steady,
stable, reliable, renewable form of power.
And more is needed, as demonstrated
in January of this year, when the utility had
record winter demand and needed to import
electricity from elsewhere. To help compensate
for a longtime shortfall, we are building two
highly ecient, round-the-clock-operating
gas-fired stations. The $1.1 billion,
1,329-megawatt plant in Warren County, Va.,
is more than half complete and has
an expected in-service date of late 2014.
A similar-sized, $1.3 billion facility in
Brunswick County, Va., is projected to come
online in 2016. A coal-to-gas conversion at
our Bremo Station, expected to enter service
in 2014, maintains 227 megawatts and costs
$53 million. Since January 2011, we have
added about 1,200 net new megawatts of
generating capacity to Dominion Virginia
Power’s service area, enough to serve
300,000 homes.
The Brunswick station and a 500-kilovolt
transmission line into southeastern Virginia
are expected to offset the generating
capacity loss from the planned shutdown
of Chesapeake and Yorktown units totaling
about 1,000 megawatts, and help to meet
future electric demand in the region.
Skies Creek is also part of an expected
investment of about $600 million per
year over the next five years to modernize
Dominion’s electric transmission system.
The company plans to systematically rebuild
14 DOMINION RESOURCES, INC.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRESS
Dominion Transmission is a partner in the U.S. EPA Natural Gas
STAR program. In 2013 the company documented a reduction in
methane emissions through implementation of five Best Management
Practices. This is part of a companywide eort to reduce emissions
across our electric production and gas transportation businesses.
Each year Dominion contributes to educational, environmental,
and basic human needs endeavors in the communities we serve.
In 2013, the Dominion Foundation gave $15 million to more than
1,400 organizations, and Dominion’s EnergyShare program helped
16,000 households stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Part of our commitment to community includes an eort to employ
military veterans, who represented 22 percent of our new hires in 2013.
COMMUNITY INVESTMENT