The State Corporation Commission (SCC) last week released found, through special discovery, that Dominion Virginia Power had earnings above its legal limit during 2013 and 2014 and ordered the company to refund $19.7 million to customers. The findings were made as part of the SCC’s regular biennial review of Dominion’s earnings. Under legislation enacted in 2015, such proceedings are suspended until 2022.
As a whole, the SCC made numerous findings which “are reasonable for purposes of determining the utility’s earned return in this biennial review.” As a result of those decisions, a SCC majority concluded that:
The company is allowed approximately $103.9 million of the excess earnings above 10 percent.
By law, the company is permitted to keep earnings of approximately $8.5 million.
By law, the remaining 70 percent, or $19.7 million, is credited to customers’ bills.
The refund will come in the form of a credit shown on bills spread over a period of six months. For a typical residential customer using an average of 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, the total refund will range between $4 and $5 based on each customer’s usage during years 2013 and 2014. The credit will appear on bills beginning no later than the February 2016 billing cycle.
The next such review by the SCC will take place in 2022.
