Coal to the rescue: Dominion's Mount Storm ran 12 hours to back up the grid in September

RICHMOND, Va. - When the grid serving Virginia hit an emergency in September, it turned to coal.

PJM Interconnection's compliance report to the U.S. Department of Energy for Sept. 17 lists the power plants that ran that day under the emergency allowances in DOE Order No. 202-26-45. Two of them belong to Dominion Energy's Mount Storm Power Station in Grant County, W.Va.: unit 3 ran 12 hours and unit 1 ran one hour.

PJM's resource list for the order, Exhibit A, rates Mount Storm unit 1 at 542 megawatts and unit 3 at 520 megawatts, both burning bituminous coal. Together, that is more than the roughly 700-megawatt reserve shortfall PJM had forecast for that day. The constraints the order relaxed for both units were sulfur dioxide and particulate matter limits, including "30-day rolling limits, daily limits and monitoring limits."

Mount Storm is owned by Virginia Electric and Power Co., Dominion Energy's Virginia utility, and is listed in Exhibit A under PJM's "VP" prefix for the Dominion zone. The plant has a total nameplate capacity of about 1,680 megawatts, according to federal Energy Information Administration data.

The emergency

PJM asked DOE for the order on Sept. 16. It forecast demand "at or around 133,285 MW (or higher)" and said the system was "forecasted to be approximately 700 MW below its reserve margin on September 17." It said the strain was worst in the BGE, Pepco and Dominion zones, where a 500-kilovolt line was limiting how much power could flow south.

The next morning, PJM told DOE that "a critical generation facility that supports the affected Zones" had gone offline unexpectedly. PJM hasn't named it. Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed the order that day, finding a risk of "the potential loss of power to homes and local businesses."

What the record shows, and doesn't

The compliance report shows Mount Storm ran in reliance on the order. PJM reports units that were designated to use the order's allowances and operated in reliance on them, so Mount Storm leaned on the federal waiver to keep running. The report doesn't say how many megawatt-hours it produced, and the full output isn't public.

Several gas-and-oil combustion turbines in Louisa, Fauquier and Hanover counties were also on PJM's list, but none appear on the Sept. 17 compliance report. That report lists only units that relied on the order's allowances. It doesn't show whether those turbines ran under their normal permits.

Other coal and gas units across PJM also ran under the order, including the Cordova plant in Illinois for 24 hours and six American Electric Power combustion turbines at Ceredo, W.Va., for 21 hours each.

Why it matters for Virginia

Mount Storm is in West Virginia, so it falls outside the plant-retirement schedule in Virginia's 2020 Clean Economy Act. That schedule covers carbon-emitting units "located in the Commonwealth," according to the Legislative Information System summary of HB 1526 and an SCC filing quoting the statute. The law requires Dominion Energy Virginia to retire such Virginia units by Dec. 31, 2045, and requires Dominion and Appalachian Power to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2045 and 2050.

Between 2015 and 2023, Dominion retired 16 coal units at six plants, according to reporting by The New Energy Crisis, which cited the company. That left it with three coal plants: Clover in Halifax County, the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center in Wise County, and Mount Storm.

Supporters of coal generation argue September proved the point. When demand spiked and a plant tripped, a coal plant, the kind of power station state policy has been phasing out, was there when it was needed. Supporters of the Clean Economy Act counter that the emergency had several causes, including maintenance-season outages and transmission limits, and DOE's order doesn't blame any single policy.

The order says rate recovery "is available" for parties affected by the emergency, through filings at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. No cost figures have been published.

Dominion's political giving

Dominion is among the largest political donors in Richmond, and Virginia does not cap corporate contributions. Records compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) show Dominion's 20 largest Democratic recipients in the 2025-26 cycle took at least $8.42 million. That list includes Shannon Taylor's attorney general campaign ($775,000), Del. Charniele Herring ($625,000), Speaker Don Scott ($600,409), Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell ($600,000) and Sen. Mamie Locke ($600,000). In 2023-24, VPAP shows the top 20 Democratic recipients took at least $7.15 million. Dominion's top 20 Republican recipients took about $5.58 million in 2025-26 and $5.06 million in 2023-24, led by Attorney General Jason Miyares at $1.42 million, according to VPAP. Virginia Scope, using VPAP data, reports Dominion has given nearly $18 million to Democrats and more than $15 million to Republicans since 2018. At the federal level, Dominion Energy PAC gave $117,800 to Democratic candidates in 2023-24 and $162,500 to Democratic PACs and party committees, according to OpenSecrets. These figures come from VPAP and OpenSecrets compilations and have not been independently re-verified against state filings.

Documents

The order, PJM's application, its supplemental letter and Exhibit A are posted on the Department of Energy's 202(c) page for Order No. 202-26-45 at energy.gov. PJM's daily compliance report for Sept. 17 is posted at pjm.com.