Is Dominion’s plan to merge with NextEra good or bad for Virginians?

Man, even the Pope doesn’t like data centers.

In his new encyclical on artificial intelligence, Pope Leo XIV laid out the dangers of the mad rush to replace humans with AI. Amid the concerns for the dignity and future of humanity, he took a moment to mention the environmental damage involved:

Current AI systems require enormous amounts of energy and water, significantly influencing carbon dioxide emissions, and place heavy demands on natural resources. As their complexity increases, especially in the case of large language models, the need for computing power and storage capacity grows too, which requires an extensive network of machines, cables, data centers and energy-intensive infrastructure. 

Judging from public polling, most Americans share the Pope’s concerns. But guess who does like data centers? Big energy companies. And unlike the Pope, these corporations are not troubled by the moral implications of their activities. The fact that AI systems require enormous amounts of energy is not a problem, but an opportunity. 

Nowhere is this clearer than in Virginia, home to Data Center Alley.

What Dominion and NextEra Energy’s proposed merger means for Virginia customers

Data centers are why the largest utility in the U.S., NextEra, wants to buy Dominion Energy. Northern Virginia is home to the largest concentration of data centers on the planet, and Dominion holds a monopoly on providing power to most of them. 

In announcing the merger deal, the companies stressed the advantages for Virginia ratepayers, including $2.25 billion in bill credits over the first two years. Although that sounds promising, recall that Dominion recently filed to recover from its customers over a billion dollars in excess fuel costs, which would cut into any windfall from the merger. Beyond that, whether Virginia customers would see lower bills over the longer term remains to be seen. 

This may also be only the start of industry consolidation in Virginia driven by data center demand. In November, Dominion was in talks to buy Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, the utility serving the second-most number of data centers in the state. There’s been no further news about the deal, but it may still happen once the NextEra merger bid is resolved.   

One supporter of the merger is Jigar Shah, a solar energy entrepreneur and former U.S. Energy Department official in the Biden administration who remains a hero to many in the clean energy world. 

In a LinkedIn post, Shah said Dominion “may be the worst-run utility in America,” one that “has been a fixer-upper for years.” In Shah’s view, NextEra brings “competence,” plus a heck of a lot of battery storage to power data centers quickly. 

In addition to batteries, NextEra, through its subsidiary NextEra Energy Resources, is the nation’s largest owner of solar and wind projects, and appears to be a true believer in the economic case for renewable energy. 

In March of 2025, NextEra executives told attendees at a Houston conference, “Renewables can provide the generation needed to meet demand at the lowest cost possible now, making them an essential near-term solution for avoiding a power affordability crisis across the U.S.” 

Even this year, most of the company’s planned projects are renewable. NextEra’s Q1 shareholder call detailed 4 gigawatts worth of contracts signed that quarter, including 2.2 GW of solar, 1.3 GW of battery storage and .5 GW of wind generation. 

Not so fast? 

The impressive clean energy portfolio notwithstanding, anyone who expects a NewEra takeover to end Dominion’s infatuation with fossil gas is mistaken. On the same Q1 shareholder call, executives bragged that “the U.S. Department of Commerce selected Energy Resources to build 9.5 gigawatts of new gas-fired generation to serve large load” customers in Texas and Pennsylvania. 

The fossil fuel investments don’t stop there. NextEra has another subsidiary that owns over 1,000 miles of gas pipelines. The company also owns gas supply companies, “making us one of the largest and most active gas suppliers serving wholesale, retail and industrial customers nationwide.” 

And NextEra is no friend to rooftop solar. Its regulated utility, Florida Power and Light, wrote and lobbied for legislation to gut net metering in the state. That doesn’t make it worse than Dominion, which has repeatedly tried to hamstring third-party solar investments in Virginia, but it does mean that solar customers can’t expect better from NextEra.

Finally, it’s not clear what will happen to Virginia’s offshore wind ambitions.

Dominion is completing construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project this year, and has – or had – ambitions to build out additional lease areas. The company also invested in the first purpose-built offshore wind installation vessel in the U.S., part of a plan to make itself a major player in an emerging east coast industry. 

The offshore wind industry has entered the doldrums in the Trump era, but Virginia leaders remain committed. Just this winter the General Assembly passed legislation furthering the development of an offshore wind workforce. 

Yet NextEra has a reputation for offshore wind skepticism, raising suspicions that the other lease areas Dominion bought won’t get developed if the merger goes through. 

The merger plan has other detractors. Clean Virginia, an organization formed to counter the influence of Dominion, warned that handing monopoly power to NextEra is risky for Virginians, given the Florida company’s record of corporate malfeasance. 

NextEra has starred in a number of corruption scandals, including allegations of spying on journalists, offering jobs to public officials as a way to buy influence, and funding so-called ghost candidates to run as spoilers in hopes of defeating political candidates the utility saw as unfriendly to its interests. 

Here in Virginia, Dominion’s outsized role in policy making has been made possible by its ability to rain cash on lawmakers. According to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), Dominion made over $28 million in campaign contributions in 2025 alone. What might Virginia candidates be able to expect from a company three times Dominion’s size?

Fortunately, NextEra and Dominion aren’t the only ones who get a say. The merger will have to be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (easy-peasy in this administration), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (ditto) and regulators in the affected states, including Virginia’s State Corporation Commission. 

Complicating matters, one of the SCC’s three commissioners, Kelsey Bagot, formerly worked for NextEra. When Bagot was appointed in 2024, it was with the understanding that she would recuse herself from matters involving NextEra. Given how much of the SCC’s work involves Dominion, the merger with NextEra would make Bagot’s recusal promise hard to live up to.

Virginia’s Attorney General, Jay Jones, will represent the interests of ratepayers in the SCC proceedings. That’s good; Jones refused to accept campaign donations from Dominion in last year’s election. Jones has promised to “scrutinize” the deal, but hasn’t said whether he supports or opposes it. 

Although the governor and General Assembly don’t have to sign off, it will be hard for the merger to go through if serious opposition arises from these quarters. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, told me in a text that the General Assembly’s Energy Commission (formerly known as the Commission on Electric Utility Regulation) will hold hearings in June.  

One thing is abundantly clear: NextEra and Dominion are focused on data centers, not residential ratepayers. But the General Assembly is pushing utilities to see residents as part of the solution to the energy crunch. Many of the bills passed this year expand opportunities for residents and businesses to invest in solar and storage, relieving grid constraints.

We’ve seen nothing so far to reassure us that the energy giants are committed to doing their part to further Virginia’s carbon-cutting mandate. Regulated utilities enjoy monopolies, after all. In return, they are expected to serve the public good. 

That’s a point Dominion often misses. The question on the minds of Virginians now is whether we can expect better from NextEra.