Policy Interventions to Address Rising Electricity Costs in Virginia
Synapse prepared the report Policy Interventions to Address Rising Electricity Costs in Virginia for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Evergreen Collaborative to examine strategies that can improve energy affordability for households and businesses. As electricity bills and the costs of essential goods continue to rise nationwide, low- and middle-income Virginians face disproportionately high energy burdens, spending a larger share of their income on electricity. The report outlines the major drivers of recent and projected bill increases, including the rapid growth of data center load and capacity constraints in the PJM region, and quantifies the benefits of four policy interventions that can significantly reduce costs for consumers: 1) requiring data centers to bring their own clean energy generation; 2) alleviating capacity constraints by increasing the pace and scale of clean energy deployment; 3) right sizing utility profits to better reflect risk and 4) accelerating beneficial electrification technologies like electric vehicles and building electrification. Synapse found that these four levers could save a typical Virginia household $712 per year and a moderately sized commercial customer $2,073 per year. In total, they could reduce statewide energy costs by $16.6 billion.