Virginia Signs Largest US State Energy Storage Mandate at 20.78 Gigawatts
Governor Abigail Spanberger signed HB895 and SB448 into law this week, requiring Virginia’s two investor-owned utilities to deploy 20.78 gigawatts of energy storage by 2045. The target exceeds the 15 gigawatts of battery storage the entire United States deployed in 2025, compressed into a single state mandate with specific utility-by-utility procurement obligations.
The legislation does not set a statewide target and leave allocation to regulators. It assigns specific gigawatt figures to each utility, with deadlines that reflect the scale of each service territory’s load growth.
Dominion’s 19.48 gigawatt share. Dominion Energy Virginia must procure 16 gigawatts of short-duration storage and 3.48 gigawatts of long-duration storage by 2045. That is 94 percent of the statewide mandate, a ratio that maps directly onto where Virginia’s electricity demand is growing fastest. Dominion serves Northern Virginia, home to the largest concentration of data centers in the United States and the epicenter of PJM’s load growth problem. The utility’s service territory has driven both record capacity auction prices in PJM and escalating commercial electricity rates across the region.
Appalachian Power, which serves the western and southwestern portions of the state, must reach 780 megawatts of short-duration storage by 2040 and 520 megawatts of long-duration storage by 2045. The combined 1.3 gigawatt target reflects a service territory with slower load growth but, notably, includes a separate mandate under HB1467 requiring Appalachian Power to file a virtual power plant pilot program with the State Corporation Commission by July 1, 2027.
SCC petition process controls implementation. The mandate requires each utility to “petition the State Corporation Commission for approval to construct, acquire, or procure” storage capacity. The legislature set the targets; the SCC will determine pace, technology, ownership structure, and cost recovery.
That petition mechanism means the 20.78 gigawatt figure is a ceiling, not a construction order. Each project or procurement tranche requires a separate regulatory proceeding, with intervenors, cost-benefit analysis, and rate impact review. The SCC has historically been a conservative regulator. Virginia’s legislature passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020 with ambitious renewable targets, and the SCC’s subsequent proceedings moved more slowly than the statutory timelines assumed. Whether the storage mandate follows the same pattern depends on the SCC’s appetite for approving procurement at the scale and speed the legislation envisions.
The word “acquire” in the legislation also opens a door. Utilities are not required to build and own every megawatt. Third-party ownership, tolling agreements, and contracted capacity from independent developers are all permissible under the statute’s language. How Dominion structures its 19.48 gigawatt obligation, whether as rate-based utility assets or contracted capacity, will shape the competitive landscape for storage developers operating in PJM for years.
Long-duration storage enters Virginia statute. Of the 20.78 gigawatt total, 4 gigawatts (3.48 from Dominion, 520 megawatts from Appalachian Power) must be long-duration storage. The legislation does not define “long-duration” by a specific hour threshold, leaving that determination to the SCC. But the separate carveout signals that Virginia’s legislature concluded four-hour lithium-ion batteries alone cannot meet the state’s grid reliability needs through 2045, particularly as sustained overnight capacity becomes as important as peak-shaving during afternoon ramps.
The long-duration requirement, at roughly 19 percent of the total mandate, is among the most specific technology-differentiated storage mandates in any US state. California’s procurement proceedings have included long-duration tranches, but those emerged from regulatory orders rather than statute. Virginia embedded the distinction in law.
Seven additional energy bills signed alongside the mandate. The storage legislation was one component of a broader energy package. HB590 and SB382 reduce residential solar permitting costs by up to $6,000 per system. HB628 and SB175, the Distributed Generation Expansion Act, encourage distributed energy resources across utility service territories. HB807 and SB254 add 525 megawatts of shared solar capacity for Dominion customers, while HB809 and SB255 increase Appalachian Power’s shared solar program by 100 megawatts. HB711 and SB347 establish consistent solar ordinance standards across local jurisdictions.
Storage mandates alone require generation and load to balance against. The distributed generation, shared solar, and VPP provisions create the supply-side and demand-side infrastructure that storage will integrate with. Virginia is not setting a gigawatt target in isolation; the legislature constructed the regulatory framework for a grid that relies on distributed resources at a scale the state has not previously attempted.
Virginia currently has 7.6 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, ranking ninth nationally, and the Solar Energy Industries Association projects that figure will double within five years. The storage mandate arrives alongside a solar fleet growing fast enough to require grid balancing at a scale the state has never managed.
Two PJM states, two responses to load growth. The 20.78 gigawatt mandate makes Virginia the first PJM state to set a storage target of this magnitude. Maryland’s RELIEF Act, signed the same month, addressed data center-driven grid costs through cost allocation rather than storage procurement. New Jersey approved 355 megawatts of battery storage projects under its Garden State Energy Storage Programme in March. Virginia’s approach is distinct: rather than managing who pays for the grid consequences of load growth, the legislature mandated that utilities build the storage to absorb it.
Whether Dominion can execute a 19.48 gigawatt storage buildout over 19 years, at an implied pace exceeding one gigawatt annually, is a question the SCC will answer one petition at a time.
Sources
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger Signs Legislation Mandating 20.78GW of Energy Storage (Energy-Storage.News)
Governor Spanberger Delivers on Energy Affordability, Blazing a Path for State Leaders Nationwide (CleanTechnica)
SEIA Statement on Spanberger Bills (Solar Energy Industries Association)