The US power giant on Trump's doorstep that is sticking by wind

Virginia-based utility Dominion Energy announced a tender Wednesday towards procuring an additional 19GW of wind, solar, and storage capacity by 2035 even as its neighbours back off renewables in the face of political hostility.

The utility said it is looking for utility-scale renewable projects in five categories: standalone wind and solar, wind and solar paired with storage, and standalone storage. It is also looking for small-scale distributed solar projects of less than 3MW each.

Dominion is at the core of the nation’s booming data centre-driven power demand surge, and company spokesman Aaron Ruby told media the tender is part of its “‘all of the above’ strategy to serve growing power demand in Virginia.”

“Our customers are using about 5% more power each year, and we’re serving that growth with a balanced mix of renewables, nuclear and natural gas,” Ruby added.

Dominion serves around 3.6 million homes in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The tender furthers the company’s long-term goal to “construct or purchase 16.1GW of solar or onshore wind generation and 2.7GW of energy storage capacity in the [Virginia] Commonwealth by 2035,” Dominion said in its request for proposals (RfP).

Duke has instead indicated that it will expand natural gas generation while delaying planned retirements of coal-fired power plants.

Wind and solar power have been highly politicised amid President Donald Trump’s war on renewables.

Trump’s Inauguration Day memorandum froze wind energy leasing and permitting on federal lands and waters and put approved arrays under extraordinary review with a goal of termination.

Dominion noted in the RfP that projects should be able to enter commercial operations by 2029, the final year of the Trump presidency.

Standalone renewables projects would sign 20-year PPAs, while standalone storage or wind and solar coupled with storage would be for 15-year durations.