Dominion sketches 3.5 GW of grid batteries over 20 years - the April law tells that utility to seek 16,000 MW of shorter batteries and 4,000 MW of longer ones
On 15 October 2026 Dominion filed a full plan in North Carolina and an interim update in Virginia. Energy-Storage.News says the preferred plan totals 3.5 GW of batteries, and about 50 MW of company-owned batteries are running. Chapter 694, approved 13 April 2026, tells the Phase II utility to petition for 16,000 MW of batteries under 10 hours by 2045, and 4,000 MW of batteries of 10 hours or more. The long-battery lines wait on a commission finding. A household bill path is printed. A factory invoice is not.
A business in Virginia that is pricing a battery on its own site will also hear about a much bigger battery plan. That plan belongs to the power company. It is not your quote.
On 15 October 2026 Dominion Energy filed a full integrated resource plan with the North Carolina Utilities Commission and an interim update with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. An integrated resource plan is a long sketch of how the utility expects to meet demand. Virginia Mercury, reporting on 19 October, says this year's update is not a list of projects, and it will not be tried as a case. A full trial is set for fall 2027. The commission reviews the filing and can accept it if the filing is sufficient. This note did not open the docket PDF. The plan figures below come from the two news reports. The law figures come from the act.
The battery line in the sketch. Energy-Storage.News, reporting on 20 October, says the preferred plan totals 3.5 gigawatts of batteries. Only the portion that does not call for a further commission review, the portion petitioned by 2030, is counted up front. The rest is picked because the model calls it the cheaper path. The 3.5 gigawatts is that total. It is not a purchase order sitting with a supplier this month.
What is already standing is smaller. The same report says about 50 megawatts of company-owned batteries are running. More than 170 megawatts of company-owned projects are approved. Another 459 megawatts are approved under power-purchase contracts. In a separate renewable-plan case, Dominion has asked the Virginia commission for 712 megawatts of batteries and nearly 5,000 megawatts of solar. In the 2025 mix the company showed, storage was 0.1 percent. Gas was 39.7 percent. Renewables the company counts as its own, solar, wind, hydro and biomass together, were 11.3 percent. Renewable purchases were a separate 6.5 percent.
The law is a different pile, and it is a petition, not a built plant. Chapter 694 of the 2026 Acts of Assembly, House Bill 895, was approved on 13 April 2026. It amends the utility statute. The battery targets are written for a Phase I utility and a Phase II utility. The news reports treat the larger set as Dominion's. The act text this note opened says Phase II. It does not print the company name in those lines.
Short and long, in the act's own words. Short-duration storage runs for less than 10 hours at full nameplate power. Long-duration storage runs for 10 hours or more.
By 31 December 2045 the Phase II utility petitions the commission for approval to construct or acquire 16,000 megawatts of the shorter batteries. Inside that, 4,000 megawatts are to be petitioned for by 31 December 2030. By the same 2045 date it petitions for 4,000 megawatts of the longer batteries. Half of that long-battery total is to be petitioned for by 31 December 2035. Of the 4,000 megawatts, half has between 10 and 24 hours of storage and half has more than 24 hours. At least 20 percent sits in the coalfield region.
The long-battery lines do not switch on by themselves. Enactment 4 of the same chapter says those subdivisions take effect only when the commission finds the technology is technically viable and the targets can reasonably be met. The utility's demonstration report is due no later than 1 October 2030. The commission opens the case when that report arrives and enters its order no later than 1 March 2031. In that case the commission also looks at the short-battery targets and can change them.
One trade report still prints 3,480 megawatts for Dominion's long batteries. That figure is in an earlier bill summary, not in the chapter approved on 13 April. The chapter prints 4,000 megawatts. This note uses 4,000.
A cap sits on a single grid project. No storage project under this section is larger than 500 megawatts, except that a Phase II utility may contract one project up to 800 megawatts. That cap is on a utility project. It is not a limit on a cabinet in a factory.
A line closer to a workplace, still not a price. The amended section tells the commission to adopt storage rules by 1 January 2027. Those rules can include behind-the-meter incentives, non-wires programs and peak-demand programs. The act does not print a dollar rate for any of them. Behind the meter means on the customer's side of the billing meter, the usual place for a factory battery. A rule that can include an incentive is not the incentive.
Two long batteries are still pilots, on the utility's account as Energy-Storage.News reports it. The commission has let Dominion test three non-lithium projects. At the Darbytown power station, one is a zinc battery from Eos and one is an iron-air battery from Form Energy that can run up to 100 hours. A pilot at a power station is not a catalog item with a price.
The rest of the sketch, so the battery line is not read alone. Energy-Storage.News says the plan also builds more than 21 gigawatts of solar, three sets of small reactors starting in 2042, and 3.4 gigawatts of extra offshore wind. To keep older plants and cover reliability, it adds 8.9 gigawatts of gas under an exception in Virginia's clean-economy law. Virginia Mercury's 19 October account puts gas at 9 gigawatts, wind at 3.3 gigawatts, and the reactors at 2 gigawatts, inside more than 39 gigawatts of new generation over 20 years. This note does not merge those into one set. The battery figure, 3.5 gigawatts, and the solar figure, more than 21 gigawatts, are in both accounts.
Demand, as the Mercury reports the filing. The company says carbon-free plants that can be called when needed are not far enough along to cover yearly demand growth of about 4 percent, or 500 to 700 megawatts, and that power demand is expected to double by 2045. Those figures leave out cooperative utilities that also take power and wires from Dominion. The filing's line, via the Mercury, is that gas stays because that carbon-free plant you can call is not there yet.
Bills. These are household bills, for 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month. They are not a factory invoice. Under the company's own sum, the Mercury says that bill reaches an estimated $258.03 in 2036 and $283.65 in 2046. Under the commission's method, $320.26 in 2036 and $458.22 in 2046. Dominion's filing, as the Mercury quotes it, says the commission's method overstates the later bills because it leaves out expected growth in sales. Jeremy Slayton, a Dominion spokesperson, told the Mercury the preferred plan is more than 39 gigawatts of new assets over 20 years, more than three-quarters of it carbon-free solar, offshore wind, storage and advanced nuclear, with less buying from the PJM market.
The regional market behind the sketch, as Energy-Storage.News reports the plan. Dominion leans on PJM's capacity market. The 2028/2029 auction cleared at the price cap. Committed capacity was more than 6,800 megawatts under PJM's requirement. The reserve margin was 14.4 percent against a 20 percent target. It was the second auction in a row to come up short. An earlier note covers a separate PJM proposal for a one-time auction around a shortfall. This note does not treat that proposal and this auction result as the same document.
Peaks are moving. The plan says demand in Dominion's zone keeps growing, and the high hours are shifting toward winter mornings and summer evenings, when solar is weak. A battery on the grid is one way the utility sketches that gap. A battery on your site is a different box, on a different bill.
Analogy: the 3.5 gigawatts is a mark on a 20-year map. The April law is a bigger mark, and the long-battery part of that mark stays in pencil until the commission says the technology is real. Neither mark is the cabinet in your switch room. About 50 megawatts running today is the part you can point at.
Good: A public filing date, a public 3.5 gigawatt battery total, a public split between what is running and what is only approved, the April chapter's 16,000 and 4,000 megawatt petition targets with the 10-hour line written down, and two household bill paths with the method named.
Bad: No factory rate. No purchase order for the 3.5 gigawatts. This year's Virginia update is not a trial. The gas, wind and reactor lines differ between the two reports. This note did not open the docket PDF.
Ugly: Reading 3.5 gigawatts as batteries you can buy this year. Reading 16,000 megawatts as plant already built. Using a 3,480 megawatt figure from an earlier bill summary after the chapter printed 4,000. Treating a 1,000 kilowatt-hour household bill as your plant's bill. Treating a Darbytown pilot as a price list.
Soft next step: if a Virginia quote puts "the utility is building batteries" on the savings page, ask whether that battery is the 50 megawatts running, the 3.5 gigawatt sketch, or the box on your site. Then a short consult at Sovryn Energy /consult if you want that line read against the quote.
Source: Virginia Acts of Assembly, 2026 Session, Chapter 694 (House Bill 895), approved 13 April 2026. Primary for the approval date, the Phase II petition targets of 16,000 megawatts of short-duration storage by 31 December 2045 including 4,000 megawatts petitioned for by 31 December 2030, 4,000 megawatts of long-duration storage by 31 December 2045 with half petitioned for by 31 December 2035, the definitions (long-duration is 10 hours or more at full nameplate, short-duration is under 10 hours), the split of the 4,000 megawatts into 10-to-24-hour and more-than-24-hour halves, the 20 percent coalfield share, the 500 megawatt project cap with a Phase II exception up to 800 megawatts, storage rules the commission adopts by 1 January 2027 including behind-the-meter incentives with no dollar rate in the act, the demonstration report due no later than 1 October 2030, and enactment 4, under which the long-duration subdivisions take effect only after the commission finds the technology technically viable and the targets reasonably achievable, with the order due no later than 1 March 2031. The chapter text opened here says Phase II. It does not print the name Dominion in those target lines. Energy-Storage.News, 20 Oct 2026 - Dominion files a plan to build 3.5 GW of batteries. Primary for the 15 October filings (a full plan at the North Carolina Utilities Commission and an interim update at the Virginia State Corporation Commission), the preferred plan's 3.5 GW battery total with the pre-2030 slice counted up front and the rest selected on cost, about 50 MW of company-owned batteries in operation, more than 170 MW approved company-owned, 459 MW approved under power-purchase agreements, a separate petition for 712 MW of batteries and nearly 5,000 MW of solar, the 2025 mix (39.7 percent gas, 11.3 percent owned renewables, 6.5 percent renewable purchases, 0.1 percent storage), the Darbytown zinc and iron-air pilots including up to 100 hours, more than 21 GW of solar, three small-reactor sets from 2042, 3.4 GW of additional offshore wind, 8.9 GW of gas under the clean-economy reliability exception, and the 2028/2029 PJM auction clearing at the price cap, more than 6,800 MW short, with a 14.4 percent reserve margin against a 20 percent target. That report prints 3,480 MW for the long-duration target. Chapter 694 prints 4,000 MW. This note follows the chapter. Virginia Mercury, 19 Oct 2026 - Dominion's energy roadmap. Primary for the framing that the update is a roadmap rather than a project list, that this year's update will not be litigated, that a full trial is set for fall 2027, more than 39 GW of new generation, more than 21 GW of solar, 3.5 GW of batteries, 9 GW of gas, 3.3 GW of wind and 2 GW of small reactors, demand growth of about 4 percent or 500 to 700 MW with demand expected to double by 2045 excluding cooperative utilities, the filing line that gas remains because a commercially viable carbon-free callable plant is not available, the household bill paths for 1,000 kWh a month ($258.03 in 2036 and $283.65 in 2046 on the company's sum; $320.26 in 2036 and $458.22 in 2046 on the commission's method), Dominion's objection that the commission's method leaves out sales growth, and Jeremy Slayton's line on more than 39 GW with more than three-quarters carbon-free and less buying from PJM. This note did not open the State Corporation Commission docket PDF.