Customer Aggregation in Virginia

The Virginia State Corporation Commission has consented to a large manufacturing corporation’s request that it be permitted to combine or aggregate the demand of three of its subsidiaries at six separate locations for purposes of receiving alternative generation supply service.

The petitioning entity, Reynolds Group Holdings, informed the commission that its filing was predicated on its desire to take advantage of the state’s competitive electric supply program, under which a nonresidential customer whose demand exceeds five megawatts (MW) may move to procure its generation supply from an alternative provider. In seeking to be able to do so, Reynolds cited specific terms in the competitive energy supply program that allow individual commercial and industrial customers with less than the 5-MW threshold demand to consolidate or aggregate their demands so as to qualify for the program.

Not surprisingly, the company’s proposal was opposed by its current electric utility, Virginia Electric & Power Company d/b/a Dominion Energy Virginia, but was supported by such competitive suppliers as Collegiate Clean Energy and Direct Energy Services. After reviewing the usage data submitted by Reynolds, the commission found that demand levels at the six customer sites to be aggregated did not meet the 5-MW eligibility standard on their own, but did come to 10.12 MW when combined.

Because that total aggregated demand would represent less than one percent (in fact, 0.06%) of Dominion’s system peak demand, and in light of projections that Dominion will experience growth in demand of 1.3% a year over the next 15 years, the commission deemed Reynolds’ request to be compatible with the state’s electric supply choice initiative and nondisruptive to Dominion’s operations. (Case No. PUR-2017-00109)