A coalition of solar and storage companies has filed testimony opposing the proposed merger of utilities Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy, arguing the combination would undermine competition in Virginia's power market.
The Storage and Clean Energy Coalition (SCEC) wrote that the transaction poses an unacceptable risk to the state's competitive landscape and said it opposes the merger as filed. Alongside that opposition, the group set out conditions it says would address its concerns, centered on how a combined company would treat customer-sited generation and competing suppliers.
Much of the testimony focuses on renewable energy. SCEC criticized the applicants for saying nothing about three forms of competition: how generation resources are procured, how distributed energy resources compete, and how non-wire alternatives compete with conventional utility infrastructure investment.
Interconnection delays and costs
Lindsey Hallock, interconnection policy director at Permit Power, an SCEC member, disputed the companies' assurances to regulators that competition would be unaffected. She said that claim does not hold for a Virginia household trying to lower its bill by generating and storing its own electricity, and that both utilities maintain policies that make connecting home solar and batteries to the grid slow and expensive.
Hallock urged the commission to require interconnection reform as a condition of any merger, including automated processing of interconnection applications and authorization of meter socket adapters, which the coalition says reduce the installed cost of home solar and battery systems.
SCEC is asking the utilities to adopt automation tools for residential and small commercial projects and to permit meter sockets, hardware that can spare customers a main service panel upgrade and shorten project timelines. The coalition also contends that the long interconnection queues already seen at both utilities would lengthen further if the companies combined.
According to the testimony, the two companies have told regulators the merger would not affect competition. SCEC rejects that conclusion and argues the deal should be assessed on the three competitive dimensions it identifies.
A Florida rooftop solar precedent
The testimony also points to NextEra's political record, citing as one of the most infamous examples the role its Florida Power & Light utility played in influencing legislation that would have substantially reduced rooftop solar compensation for residential customers at a time when only a small share of households had rooftop solar. SCEC described that episode as evidence of how the company has used political influence to extract concessions or to shape policies in its own favor over competition.
The filing was submitted as testimony in the merger proceeding and states the coalition's opposition to the transaction as currently proposed.