Panel unanimously backs bill requiring utilities to disclose 'must-run' commitments after analysis finds large overpayments
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Summary
HB 1360 would require investor-owned utilities to disclose hours and reasons for 'must-run' self-scheduling and allow the SCC to review whether those decisions were reasonable; sponsor cited Rocky Mountain Institute analysis that Virginia ratepayers overpaid roughly $1.4 billion since 2015.
Delegate Haskell Shin told Subcommittee 3 that HB 1360 addresses 'uneconomic dispatch'—the practice of self-scheduling generating units to run even when market prices are lower—by requiring utilities to disclose detailed information in annual fuel-factor proceedings and by directing the SCC to evaluate whether must-run decisions were reasonable. "According to Rocky Mountain Institute's analysis, Virginia ratepayers have overpaid approximately $1,400,000,000 since 2015 because of uneconomic dispatch," Shin said.
The substitute adds language limiting the statute's focus to coal- or oil-fueled generating units and requires utilities to include hours committed as must-run, costs, reasons, and market clearing prices for each hour. Advocates including Appalachian Voices, the Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions and Southern Environmental Law Center supported the measure as a transparency and ratepayer-protection tool. Dominion representatives said the substitute memorializes a recent SCC fuel order and that they would continue to work with the commission.
The subcommittee reported the substitute unanimously, 8–0.
What happens next: The bill will proceed with SCC review authority intact; SCC determinations could lead to cost disallowances for unreasonable must-run decisions.