The 14-hour power outage last month that shuttered Del Ray restaurants on what should have been their busiest day of the year — Art on the Avenue — was one of the stronger examples Alexandria officials have used in criticizing Dominion Power for reliability issues in the area.
"Unfortunately, for the past few years our residents and businesses have not received the type of service that we expect from Dominion Virginia Power," wrote Mayor Justin Wilson in an email newsletter Monday.
There may be some relief coming for residents — at least on their energy bills. Customers could see $330 million in refunds and a $50 million rate reduction as a result of a new agreement with the Virginia Office of the Attorney General and the state's public utility commission.
But Wilson is arguing for even more. There have been so many major power outages in Alexandria in the past year that Wilson filed a petition with the Virginia State Corporation Commission as part of Dominion's Triennial Review. The petition requests that Dominion's allowed profit be reduced to account for the outages here in Alexandria.
According to data from Dominion, the average outage length in Alexandria has crept up since 2015, from a little more than 90 minutes to more than 2 hours, 10 minutes.
Dominion does have multiple projects in the works and planned to increase reliability for customers, including rebuilding circuits, putting some utilities underground and upgrading electric lines for better reliability during storms.
In the petition, Wilson requested a "multi-year infrastructure investment plan to improve reliability of electricity service for the City of Alexandria," "improved transparency for customers" and a better commitment to respond to customer requests quickly.
More information will be available in the coming weeks.
