Dominion Virginia distribution grid load factor is 41%, disclosure shows

Dominion Energy's Virginia subsidiary disclosed last month that its distribution grid runs at an average load factor of 41% and peaks just under 80% utilization, under a first-of-its-kind legislative mandate.

Load factor is average energy usage divided by peak load, the definition Grid Strategies uses. The consultancy, which publishes an annual report on U.S. bulk power supply and demand, puts the systemwide load factor at about 60%, heading to 66% by 2030, Utility Dive reported. Dominion put its Virginia transmission system's median facility utilization at about 33%. Individual facilities may approach or exceed rated capacity during outages, demand peaks or "significant power transfers," the utility said.

For allocators underwriting regulated wires, the 41% figure is a capex input rather than an engineering curiosity. A network whose average load is 41% of peak is built to serve peaks that arrive rarely, which suggests room for demand response, storage or grid-enhancing technology to defer some capacity spending. That puts flexible capacity in competition with rate base for the next increment of investment, and the transmission number cuts the same way: a median facility utilization of 33% on lines the utility says can approach rated capacity during outages and power transfers.

The disclosure surfaced on a panel at the BNEF Houston Summit, held as utilities, hyperscalers and regulators scramble to accommodate large-load demand amid backlash from ratepayers concerned about affordability. Jessica Hogle, NRG's vice president of federal affairs, said utilities should be ambitious about flexibility. "We should just say: 'This is our goal and we will get there'," she said. NRG, a Texas-based independent power producer and retail energy provider, aims to deliver 25 GW of demand response, energy storage and virtual power plant capacity by 2035, a goal Hogle called ambitious but achievable.

Hogle joined NRG in June and began her career at Pacific Gas & Electric, where she recalled the utility telling California legislators that integrating renewable resources was too hard and too expensive. "We exceeded the targets," she said. Arushi Sharma Frank, a Texas-based energy consultant, said getting more out of the existing grid, finding "a better way to optimize every dollar," could have broad-based economic and societal benefits.

Together the numbers give regulators a yardstick: 41% on distribution, a 33% transmission median, against a systemwide load factor of about 60%. How much of the next wires build flexibility defers rather than adds to rate base is the question that yardstick now lets them ask.