NOTE: This is the first in a series of articles about Community Electric Cooperative’s power supply.
A question we hear a lot is: Where does the electricity in my home actually come from? Electrons being electrons: The technical answer? From all over. Once an energy source puts an electron on the grid, it can pretty much go anywhere, kind of like adding drops of food coloring to a swimming pool. There’s no way to trace exactly which electron ends up where.
So instead, a better question might be: Who supplies Community Electric’s power, and how does it get to us? The answer: a company called Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, or ODEC for short. ODEC is based in Richmond and supplies power to Community Electric and 10 other co-ops across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.
ODEC owns, in whole or in part, a handful of power plants that generate some of the electricity it supplies to its 11 member co-ops. ODEC also has a robust power-purchase program managed by its Power Supply Team that looks at electricity market pricing weeks, months and even years ahead to cost-effectively fill the gap for power not generated by its own plants. The goal of this “hedging” approach is to help keep rates low and stable for the ultimate recipients of the electricity – the co-ops’ member-owners – by avoiding volatility and significant price swings that are seen most often during periods of extremely hot or extremely cold weather.
ODEC is one of 64 “generation and transmission (G&T)” cooperatives nationwide, while CEC and the other 10 ODEC members are among the 832 “distribution” cooperatives that receive power through these “G&T” co-ops.
“We’re here to serve the co-ops,” Andrew Vehorn, ODEC’s senior vice president of member engagement, explains. “We are owned by Community Electric and the other 10 ODEC members; Community Electric is owned by the members. There’s no profit motive in selling power, and we want to get it to them in the most affordable, most reliable way that we can.”
Here’s a look at the power plants ODEC uses to help keep your lights on:
● Wildcat Point, a natural gas-fired plant in Maryland’s northeastern corner
● Louisa, a natural gas-fired plant situated between Richmond and Charlottesville
● Marsh Run, a natural gas-fired plant in Fauquier County in northern Virginia
● Clover, a coal-fired plant, in which ODEC has a 50 percent interest, in Halifax County near the Virginia-North Carolina border
● North Anna, a nuclear power plant, in which ODEC has an 11.6 percent interest, northwest of Richmond
Together, these plants supply about 53 percent of the electricity that ODEC needs to serve its member co-ops, with the other 47 percent provided through supplies purchased on the wholesale power markets, Vehorn says. The latter category includes the many long-term power-purchase agreements that ODEC has for energy generated by renewable energy sources.
“We own and manage several power plants. We also have a robust hedging program, so we are constantly looking at the markets, determining whether we need to have our plants running or, when beneficial for our members, be out in the market buying power,” says Kirby Jordan, ODEC’s vice president of communications and public relations. “Sometimes it’s more cost-effective to buy electricity than to produce it ourselves. That helps keep energy prices as low as possible for everyone.”
And you can rest assured that Community Electric has a strong voice in all of ODEC’s major decisions. Our President and CEO, Steven A. Harmon, currently chairs ODEC’s Board of Directors. CEC board member Chad Fowler, who lives in the City of Suffolk, also serves on the board.
“From our rates and finances to other matters, all the decisions we make as a company, everything has to go through the board, so Community has strong representation,” Jordan says.
The rising cost of energy is among the biggest challenges facing ODEC and its counterparts, Vehorn says.
“Energy demand is going up. You’re seeing that across the board, especially in Virginia, for a lot of reasons,” he says. “You’ve got a lot of load (demand) coming in – data centers coming in at a never-before-seen pace. At the same time,generation in Virginia has gone offline, due to the Clean Economy Act,” a law enacted in 2020 that seeks to transition Virginia’s power grid to 100 percent carbon-free sources by 2050.
“We now have a supply-and-demand issue where we’re bringing in power from out of state, requiring additional transmission capacity. A big component of folks’ energy bills is transmission costs and, if we’re importing energy we’re doing that over transmission lines. The transmission piece of the rate has gone up and, because there is less generation and higher demand in Virginia, it means energy prices are higher here. I think that’s the trend for the foreseeable future.”