called the Virginia Clean Economy Act, or VCEA, that helped pave the way for the wind farm, such a cost-benefit analysis doesn't need to be considered.
The project will help Dominion meet the goals of the VCEA, a sweeping overhaul of the state's energy policy enacted by Democrats that included a number of renewable energy mandates intended to help address the threats of climate change. The wind farm will also help the company meetThe VCEA directed Dominion to submit a plan to the commission for review that addresses the economic development benefits the project is expected to bring to Virginia.
The SCC called the report Dominion relied upon “stale” and noted that the cost data it used was derived from data in the United Kingdom., John Larson, Dominion's director of public policy and economic development, responded that “claiming that the information is ‘somewhat stale’ does not present an argument against reliability of the data or its substantive analysis.”
Furthermore, nothing in the VCEA requires the company to perform its own analysis of"economic development costs" or requires the commission to consider such an analysis, Larson wrote."The General Assembly has established clean energy standards and goals for the Commonwealth and based on the inherent nature of public utility service, there will be customer-borne costs," he wrote.