The Storage and Clean Energy Coalition (SCEC), whose members come from the solar and storage industry, has filed testimony opposing the proposed merger of Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy.
SCEC said the transaction would pose an unacceptable risk to Virginia’s competitive landscape and that it opposes the merger in its current form. The group raised concerns that the combination could affect the growth of renewable energy in the state, citing competition in energy markets.
The coalition said the utilities did not address competition in the procurement of generation resources, competition from distributed energy resources, or competition to provide non-wire alternatives to traditional utility infrastructure investment. Lindsey Hallock, interconnection policy director at Permit Power, an SCEC member, disputed the utilities’ position that the merger would not affect competition.
Hallock said that assertion did not hold for a Virginia family seeking to lower its bills by generating and storing electricity at home. She said Dominion and NextEra policies make connecting home solar and batteries to the grid time-consuming and expensive. Hallock called on the commission to require interconnection reform as a condition of the merger, including automating the interconnection process and authorizing meter socket adapters, which the coalition says can reduce the cost of home solar and battery projects.
SCEC also said long interconnection queues at both utilities would worsen if they merged. It is asking the utilities to adopt interconnection automation tools for residential and small commercial projects and to permit meter sockets, which can prevent main service panel upgrades, to speed the process. The testimony further cited NextEra’s political influence, including Florida Power & Light’s role in legislation that would have substantially reduced rooftop solar compensation for residential customers when a very small percentage of households had rooftop solar.