KEY FINDINGS
- By 2040, electric and gas bills for a typical Virginia household could go up by $1,115 annually above inflation due to a collision of inflationary trends, including the rapidly rising price of natural gas for Virginia utilities as a result of surging exports of US-produced gas.
- Rising electricity demand from Virginia data centers, and the Trump administration’s efforts to slow clean energy development are further contributing to Virginia’s energy affordability crisis.
- Electricity bills are going up across Virginia because The Commonwealth has tripled its dependency on natural gas for electricity over the past decade, putting consumers at the mercy of big gas and tech companies that want to pad their profits.
- The rate increases in Virginia this year are only a taste of what’s to come. Virginia is at an energy crossroads, and the only path that protects Virginia consumers is to diversify our energy resources with more in-state energy from the sun and wind and less out-of-state energy controlled by oil and gas companies that will squeeze every penny they can from Virginians.
- Big gas companies are driving up prices for Virginians by sending more and more US-produced gas overseas, which means that Dominion and other Virginia utilities have to pay more for whatever gas is leftover. This has led to higher gas and electricity costs here in Virginia, and it’s only going to get worse because there is a massive buildout underway in other parts of the country to double the amount of gas we send overseas in the coming years.
- Trump is making matters even worse by pulling down incentives for affordable energy alternatives like solar and wind that we can control here in Virginia without worrying about the price gouging schemes of global energy and tech companies. He even wants to pull the rug out from under LIHEAP, the low income energy assistance program that more than two hundred thousand seniors and other Virginia households depend on to heat and cool their homes.