FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT:
Amy Bacigalupo, Communications Manager
July 9, 2026
High Costs Are the Result of Policy Choices, Not Inevitability
RICHMOND, Va. — Dominion Energy announced another rate increase this week, citing fuel costs and the need to purchase power from other providers as rationale for the hike. However, Dominion’s announcement leaves out important context on the cause of higher bills. The latest announcement continues a worrying trend in Virginia as bills become increasingly unaffordable for regular customers: Over the past year, average residential bills have risen above $180 per month — an increase of roughly 20% in one year.
The findings in The Path to Affordable Power: Lowering Bills for Dominion Energy Customers offer important context, showing that Dominion residential bills have climbed dramatically over the past two decades. The report, released by Clean Virginia earlier this year, found that average residential bills increased from $90.59 to $149.92 between July 2007 and July 2025 — an increase of more than 65% — far outpacing inflation.
“Every time Dominion raises rates, Virginia families are asked to pay more for a system that was never designed with affordability as the priority,” said Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia. “These rising bills are not inevitable. They are the result of choices that have allowed utility profits, unchecked growth and risky decisions to come before the interests of customers. Absent dramatic change, these frequent rate hikes will be the new norm.”
Clean Virginia’s report provides a data-driven explanation for why Dominion customers have seen their bills climb higher year after year. It finds that rising electric bills are not the result of a single factor, but of policy decisions that reward utility spending, shift financial risk from shareholders to customers, and fail to ensure that the largest new users of electricity pay their fair share.
The analysis identifies four major drivers behind rising costs: a regulatory system that rewards utility spending over cost control, continued reliance on fossil fuels that exposes customers to volatile fuel prices, rapid data center growth that drives up energy costs throughout the system, and broader national cost pressures that are compounded by weak oversight and poor planning.
These same dynamics are reflected in Dominion’s most recent bill increase — the July 1 fuel factor adjustment — which was driven in part by surging energy demand from data centers and a regulatory structure that leaves customers responsible for volatile fuel costs while shielding the utility from the consequences of its own fuel decisions.
The report also outlines practical reforms to improve affordability, including strengthening oversight of utility profits, ensuring data centers pay for all costs they create, expanding energy efficiency programs, and prioritizing lower-cost clean energy resources over unnecessary new gas plants.
These findings are especially relevant as Dominion Energy seeks approval for its proposed acquisition by NextEra Energy. The merger would create the largest regulated electric utility in the country at a time when Virginians are already struggling with rising energy costs.
“This report shows exactly why Virginia cannot afford to double down on the status quo,” Gilmore said. “When a utility already has the financial incentive to spend more and grow bigger, making that utility even larger without stronger accountability risks locking customers into higher costs for decades to come.”
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Clean Virginia is a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to removing corporate money from Virginia politics and reforming utility regulation to put customers first. Learn more at cleanvirginia.org.