If approved, Virginia residents and small business owners would be tasked with higher electricity rates.
Big Business in Virginia sought to bypass utility costs, but the State Corporation Commission ruled in favor of Virginia residents and small business owners.
In search for alternative suppliers to serve its 164 stores throughout Virginia, sister companies Walmart and Sam’s Club submitted a proposal that “would cost Dominion customers $65 million and Apco customers $4 million over the next 10 years,” reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“Given the context of a decade of rising rates and the likelihood of even higher rates in the future, we do not find it consistent with the public interest for captive customers who do not have the legal ability to obtain lower rates—predominantly residential and small business—to suffer from the cost-shifting identified herein by enabling a large-demand customer to seek its power supply elsewhere through aggregation,” said the commission in its 13-page order.
