Officials in Virginia have voted to approve a plan for a massive natural gas-fired power plant in the central part of the state near the James River.
Supervisors in Cumberland County, about an hour west of the state capital Richmond, on October 20 voted 3-1 in support of the Cumberland Energy Center, a 3,000-MW gas-fired station planned by Dominion Energy. The vote Tuesday came after hours of public comment about the facility. The local planning commission in August had recommended approval of a conditional use permit required for the project.
“We look forward to continuing to engage with the community as we move forward with this very vital project, not only to our customers in providing reliable power but also to the Cumberland community,” said Jeremy Slayton, a Dominion Energy spokesperson, in a statement. The project still needs an air permit from the state Department of Environmental Quality and approval from the Virginia State Corporation Commission.
Dominion has said the Cumberland Energy Center would use two, 2-on-1 combined cycle gas-fired units to generate about 3 GW of baseload power. The utility said power station is sited on about 150 acres off Duncan Store Road in Cumberland County. Dominion has said it is targeting 2029 to begin construction of the project.
Natural Gas-Fueled Buildout
The utility earlier this year projected that over the next two decades it would have to build as many as six natural gas-fired power plants, in addition to more renewable energy projects, in order to meet the growing demand for electricity in its territory. State officials already this year have approved Dominion’s proposal to build five solar and battery storage projects, and approved 10 power purchase agreements, totaling as much as 1 GW of power generation capacity.
Dominion has not given an official estimated cost for the Cumberland station, but the utility has said it will be a “multi-billion-dollar project.” Slayton earlier this year confirmed the Cumberland Energy Center would cost more than Dominion’s Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center, a 944-MW gas-fired power plant that regulators approved last year. The Chesterfield plant, with a price tag of $1.47 billion, is being built on the site of the Chesterfield Power Station, a power plant whose last operating coal-fired units were retired in 2023. The new gas-fired plant is being built near the existing gas-fired Units 7 and 8 (with 446 MW of generation capacity) at Chesterfield.
The region in Virginia is home to several power generation facilities and planned energy projects. James River Industrial Park, a site about 7 miles south of the James River Industrial Center near Interstate 95, in late 2024 was chosen as the location for what could be the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant. Commonwealth Fusion Systems in December 2024 said the company would build a 400-MW fusion facility on a 100-acre site at the industrial park.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
