Dominion Power 2014 Annual Report Download - page 10

DOMINION RESOURCES, INC.
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Other Dominion businesses also delivered service throughout
the deep freeze without a hitch. Dominion Transmission, Inc.
(DTI), which provides natural gas transportation and storage,
experienced no primary service disruptions and established a new
record system volume. Its storage facilities were fully available and
produced withdrawals of 240 billion cubic feet of gas, breaking
a 12-year-old DTI storage record. Volumes of gas withdrawn by
end-user customers of peaking gas storage service at Dominion’s
Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility on the
Chesapeake Bay in Lusby, Md., also topped a previous high.
Both Dominion’s financial and operational track records have
been recognized in awards from many organizations. For instance,
in December 2014, Electric Light & Power, a near-century-old
publication, named Dominion its “Utility of the Year.” The
magazine’s editors specifically cited our company’s safety
record, reputation, infrastructure investments, and environmental
and sustainability initiatives as deciding factors.
Four Core Values
Throughout the year, our management team discusses our stated
growth plans at length in investor, shareholder and financial
analyst meetings, media interviews and briefings, and other
public forums.
Sometimes lost in these discussions of big projects and potentially
bigger prospects for greater shareholder value is the simple fact
that the vast majority of our workforce is focused on day-to-day
operations, regulatory and statutory compliance, customer
service and workplace safety. Our employees perform those tasks
understanding and believing in Dominion’s four core values: safety,
ethical behavior, excellence and teamwork.
I tell our employees that if they pay attention to our values, then
everything else—reliability, customer satisfaction, profitability,
shareholder returns, reputation—will take care of itself.
Our 2014 results attest to the fact that our employees paid
attention.
Safety Matters Most
Everything at Dominion begins with safety, because it is the
foundation on which all else is built. We talk about it in employee
and shareholder meetings, and on all of our earnings calls. Our
employees have protected themselves and the public.
Last year was a record-setting year—with an OSHA recordable
rate of 0.74 and a lost time/restricted duty rate of 0.33, meaning
that in 2014, there were 108 reported workplace injuries in our
entire workforce and 48 workplace injuries that resulted in lost
days or reassignment of duties—in 29 million hours worked.
Dominion is always striving for zero injuries.
Clean Infrastructure Comes Online
Our attention to core corporate values pays off. It allows us
to serve our customers reliably and bring new projects online
both on time and on budget. This was true for our $1.1 billion,
1,342-megawatt gas-fired Warren County Power Station, which
in late 2014 was added to our generation fleet serving 2.5 million
electric utility customer accounts in Virginia and North Carolina.
Located in the northwestern part of Virginia, this clean-burning
facility can power 335,000 homes.
We completed the $53 million conversion of the 227-megawatt
Bremo Power Station from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas.
Dominion Virginia Power also added approximately 2 megawatts
of solar generating capacity. The latter is part of our Solar
Partnership Program, which authorizes the company to build, own
and operate roof- and ground-mounted facilities with commercial,
industrial and governmental customers across the Commonwealth
of Virginia. Today, Bremo and these solar arrays are capable of
producing power for more than 57,000 homes.