Dominion Energy Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 1, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Management reaffirmed full-year financial guidance, reported Q1 operating EPS of $0.95 (GAAP $0.69), said FFO-to-debt metrics remain above 15%, and noted ~$1.2B of ATM equity issued year-to-date.
  • Positive Sentiment: The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project is over 75% complete, achieved first power in March, and the company expects the majority of turbines placed in service by end-2026 with remaining units by mid-2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: CVOW budget is now $11.4B (≈$100M lower than prior update) with $123M of unused contingency, and Dominion estimates about $5B of fuel savings for customers in the project's first 10 years.
  • Negative Sentiment: Cost risks remain for CVOW — potential Section 232 steel/aluminum tariffs could add roughly $200M, while PJM transmission-cost reallocations are pending and could shift allocations, creating near-term uncertainty.
  • Positive Sentiment: Long-term growth catalysts include Virginia's new storage mandate (petition for 20 GW by 2045) and a data-center pipeline of over 50 GW (≈10.4 GW contracted), which the company says could accelerate regulated capital deployment and extend growth.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Dominion Energy Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

Skip to Participants
Operator

Welcome to the Dominion Energy First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, each of your lines is in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of today's presentation, we will open the floor for questions. Instructions will be given for the procedure to follow if you would like to ask a question. I would now like to turn the call over to David McFarland, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, and Treasurer.

David McFarland
David McFarland
SVP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at Dominion Energy

Good morning, thank you for joining Dominion Energy's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Earnings materials, including today's prepared remarks, contain forward-looking statements and estimates that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, for a discussion of factors that may cause results to differ from management's estimates and expectations. This morning, we'll discuss some measures of our company's performance that differ from those recognized by GAAP. Reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, which we can calculate, are contained in the earnings release kit. I encourage you to visit our investor relations website to review webcast slides as well as the earnings release kit.

David McFarland
David McFarland
SVP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at Dominion Energy

Joining today's call are Bob Blue, Chair, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Steven Ridge, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and other members of senior management. I will now turn the call over to Steven.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Since the conclusion of the business review over two years ago, we've remained steadfastly focused on three top priorities. First, consistent achievement of our financial commitments. Second, continued achievement of major construction milestones for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. Third, constructive achievement of regulatory outcomes that demonstrate our ability to work cooperatively with regulators and stakeholders to benefit both customers and shareholders. As we'll discuss today, we continue to demonstrate success against these priorities as we build our track record of high quality and consistent execution. Turning to first quarter results, as shown on slide three. We're off to a strong start to the year with first quarter operating earnings of $0.95 per share. First quarter GAAP results were $0.69 per share.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

As a reminder, a summary of all adjustments between operating and GAAP results is included in Schedule 2 of the earnings release kit. We are affirming all financial guidance provided on our fourth quarter earnings call, including operating earnings, credit, dividend, and long-term growth guidance. We continue to guide to annual earnings growth at the midpoint of our 5%-7% range with a bias starting in 2028 toward the upper half of the range. Our confidence in that outlook reflects disciplined financial management, attractive business fundamentals, and the strength of our growing regulated investment profile. First and foremost, this is about our customers and meeting their needs affordably and reliably. We're monitoring catalysts that could enhance and/or extend our long-term growth rate.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

We continue to see incremental opportunities to deploy regulated capital on behalf of customers, most recently supported by legislation in Virginia to expand grid-scale energy storage targets. House Bill 895 and Senate Bill 448, which are now signed into law, require that we petition for 20 GW of short- and long-term storage projects by 2045, a significant increase from the current requirement of 3 GW by 2035. We'll reflect this new multiyear opportunity as well as other regulated investment opportunities in our capital update early next year. As Bob will discuss in his prepared remarks, we expect increasing clarity later this year around the opportunity to re-contract Millstone. Turning to data centers on slide four. We now have over 50 GW of data center capacity in various stages of contracting, including approximately 10.4 GW of capacity contracted under electric service agreements.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

Since our last update, we continue to see accelerating and durable demand from our differentiated, high-quality, low-risk data center customers. Large load provisions ensure those customers will fund the infrastructure required for their growth, protecting existing customers from cost shifts and mitigating stranded cost risk. Quickly on the financing plan and credit. Year to date, we have issued approximately $1.2 billion of common equity under the ATM, leaving $400 million-$600 million for the remainder of the year, consistent with our Q4 call guidance. As mentioned previously, there is no change to our credit-related targets. Full year 2025 and Q1 LTM FFO to debt metrics are both above 15%, demonstrating our commitment to credit strength, and we continue to de-risk CVOW as we achieve major milestones, such as first power in March.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

In closing, we are off to a good start to the year, aligned with our guidance and capital plan, and confident in our ability to execute. Our financial plan strikes the right balance of appropriately conservative but not unreasonably so. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Thank you, Steven. I'll begin with safety on slide five. Our employee OSHA injury recordable rate for the first quarter of the year was 0.42, which remains well below the industry average. Safety is our first core value, and we're continuing our efforts to drive to zero workplace injuries. I'll start our business updates with the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project on slide six. The project is now over 75% complete. As Steven mentioned, in March, we achieved a very significant milestone with the delivery of much-needed power to customers. General fabrication and installation continue to proceed very well. We've now completed installation of all 176 transition pieces that connect the monopile foundations to the turbine towers. All three substations are installed, and commissioning is proceeding as planned. Deep water export cables are installed, and inter-array cable installation is on track.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

All of the remaining cabling is now fabricated. The majority has landed in Virginia. We're making excellent progress on turbine fabrication. Over 86% of towers, approximately 69% of nacelles, and about 45% of blades have been fabricated. This progress tracks well relative to our schedule. With regard to wind turbine generators, we're seeing materially positive improvements in the installation cadence as shown on slide seven. We affirm our previously communicated timeline for project completion, with the majority of turbines expected to be placed in service by the end of 2026, and the remainder in early 2027 prior to the end of June. As of this morning, we've completed nine turbines. During the first quarter, we successfully calibrated our procedures and equipment and navigated winter weather.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Since then, we've been able to ramp the installation rate markedly, including averaging approximately two days per installation for our last four turbines, which supports our existing timeline for project completion. We continue to see paths to optimize the process, resulting in improved installation times. In addition, we're moving into better weather windows for the next several months. Please note the current project budget includes turbine installation schedule contingency for weather delays through July 2027 as needed, including Charybdis charter costs. I'll also reiterate our general rule of thumb. If the project extends beyond July 2027, we estimate that each additional quarter to complete turbine installation would add between $150 million and $200 million to the project cost, a portion of which would be allocated to our financing partner. We'll continue to include data from additional installation iterations in our quarterly updates.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

As shown on slide eight, the project budget now stands at $11.4 billion, which is approximately $100 million lower than our last update. We've updated the budget to reflect changes in tariff assumptions as a result of recent judicial and administrative actions. Unused contingency stands at $123 million. Looking forward on project costs, we're monitoring the potential of two recent events. First, certain regional transmission projects were captured in both the PJM transition cycle, which resulted in network upgrade costs allocated to CVOW and the subsequent broader RTEP award package. As a result, we would expect the overall network upgrade cost allocated via the PJM transition cycle across all generation queue projects, including CVOW, to be reassessed and reduced. Second, recently updated steel and aluminum tariffs, which are pending additional information from suppliers and guidance from the applicable agencies.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

As shown on slide nine, the project's cost sharing and risk sharing continue to work as intended to protect customers and shareholders with no change to either LCOE or customer bill impacts. CVOW remains one of the most affordable sources of energy for our customers. Our updated analysis indicates that the project is expected to generate fuel savings of approximately $5 billion for customers during the project's first 10 years of operations. Taking a step back, all of the above approach to energy supply, including CVOW, is critical to ensuring continued reliability amidst real-time growing demand in our service areas. Building new energy generation is a core competency of ours. It's demonstrated in recent years with our successful development of thousands of megawatts of renewable generation, as well as combined cycle plants in Greensville, Brunswick, and Warren County.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

We continue to advance the development of new generation capacity consistent with our update last quarter. In addition to producing much needed energy for our customers, these projects will be an economic benefit for Virginia, generating thousands of new jobs, billions of dollars of economic investment, and meaningful local tax revenue. Turning to slide 10, I'll reiterate that we view customer affordability as central to our public service obligation, and accordingly, we have a long record of maintaining competitive rates which continue to compare favorably to the national average. Even while executing one of the largest regulated investment programs in the sector, we expect our customer bills will continue to grow at rates comparable to inflation over the long term, demonstrating disciplined capital deployment and our regulatory construct working as intended.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

We recognize, though, that customers are feeling the pressure of higher costs for housing, groceries, and other essentials, including their electric bill. We have a number of programs designed to help our customers manage their bills, including budget billing, energy savings programs, and financial assistance programs such as EnergyShare. Late last year, we also launched a new online platform to put all our programs in one place so customers can more easily find the best options to meet their needs. In addition to providing tools to help manage payments, we're also working to ensure fair and reasonable rates. For instance, the commission approved our recently proposed large load provisions in the 2025 biennial to ensure that our smaller customers aren't at risk of subsidizing our largest customer classes nor be left with stranded costs.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

We also plan to pursue fuel securitization in Virginia for unrecovered fuel costs to minimize the rate impact on customers. We work continuously to improve the efficiency of our operations while meeting high customer service standards and reliability needs. In recent years, we've driven out costs through improved processes, innovative use of technology, and other best practice initiatives. On the technology front, we're focused on implementing technology initiatives that accelerate our mission, and we've recently deployed a range of AI tools. For example, in our contact center, AI enables clear visibility into customer needs at scale and real-time insight into customer sentiment, allowing us to respond with greater precision and efficiency. Looking ahead, we're intently focused on ensuring our service isn't just reliable, but that it remains affordable as well. Now I'll turn to other business updates, as shown on slide 11.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

In South Carolina, DESC's electric rate case continues to progress. Staff and other interveners filed their testimony on March 31st. We filed our rebuttal testimony on April 21st and expect our rebuttal testimony on May 5th, consistent with the procedural schedule. Hearings are scheduled for mid-May, and we expect a decision in late June, with rates effective in July. Yesterday, we filed an electric rate case application and testimony for Dominion Energy North Carolina to support the approximately $400 million investment placed in service by the company attributed to North Carolina since the 2024 rate case and ensure that we can continue to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective service to our North Carolina customers. We expect a decision in February 2027, with interim rates effective December 26, subject to true-up and finalization in March 2027.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Recall DENC represents about 4% of the company's investment base. Finally, on Millstone. I'll start by noting Governor Lamont's comments last week highlighting the hundreds of millions of dollars that the current Millstone contract has saved customers and which is now resulting in a material customer bill reduction in Connecticut. In March, the facility submitted its bid in the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection's zero carbon energy request for proposals. Per DEEP's published schedule, solicitation decisions are expected in the second quarter, with negotiations with the local state utilities to begin in the third quarter. Contracts will be submitted to the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority for approval thereafter, the timeline for which is up to 180 days. In addition to state-sponsored procurement, we continue to evaluate the prospect of supporting incremental data center activity as well.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

We remain focused on achieving a constructive outcome for the facility and will continue to provide updates as things develop. With that, let me summarize our remarks on slide 12 by reiterating where Steven began the call, with a focus on our top three priorities: consistently achieving our financial commitments, continued on-time achievement of major construction milestones for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, and achieving constructive regulatory outcomes that demonstrate our ability to work cooperatively with regulators and stakeholders to deliver results that benefit both customers and shareholders. We're 100% focused on execution. We remain committed to delivering reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean power for our customers. With that, we're ready to take your questions.

Operator

At this time, we will open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question please press the star key follow by the one key of you touchtone phone now If at any time you would like to remove yourself from the question queue, please press star two. Again, to ask a question at this time, please press star one now. We'll take our first question from Nick Campanella with Barclays. Your line is open.

Nick Campanella
Nick Campanella
Analyst at Barclays

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Morning, Nick.

Nick Campanella
Nick Campanella
Analyst at Barclays

Morning. I just wanted to ask on the HB 895 that you brought up on the battery side, can you just talk about what's embedded in the plan currently for battery storage, what your recovery mechanisms would be for this new opportunity? When you just think about supply chain, labor, the company's own balance sheet capacity, what does that enable in terms of a gigawatt installation run rate? And what could we expect here, if you have any thoughts? Thanks.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

Yeah, Nick, great question. The $65 billion five-year capital plan, which we produced as part of the Q4 call in February, includes already about $2 billion or about 3% related to battery storage, subject to regulatory approval. What the recent legislation means for us is that in order to achieve the updated targets, we're going to need to work diligently to accelerate the ramp of that capital. I'd say things to watch going forward, there's going to be a State Corporation Commission technical conference this year on the topic. We'll of course update our IRP in the fall to reflect our most recent thinking on the ramping of the battery storage. We'll update our capital plan in line with our normal cadence on the fourth quarter.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

General rule of thumb, you know, a gigawatt overnight installed, including transmission, network upgrades, et cetera, we sort of put into the $2.5 billion-$3 billion per gigawatt. Obviously the increase to 20, which includes short and long term, represents a meaningful opportunity over a long period of time. We're excited about the opportunity. We're working on the pipeline for this, as mentioned, with the $2 billion in the plan. This gives us an opportunity to potentially accelerate that. We'll, we'll provide those updates and would recommend folks pay attention to those couple of public data points that'll happen later this year.

Nick Campanella
Nick Campanella
Analyst at Barclays

Okay, looking forward to it. Maybe just moving to CVOW, just two questions there. I just wanted to clarify, the PJM upgrade costs, are they included or not in the figures you're putting out there today, or is that still downward pressure? How are you thinking about the potential Section 232 steel tariffs. Thanks.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

Yeah. Yeah, Nick, another really good question. Today's mark does not reflect the potential for certain transmission costs that were allocated to CVOW being potentially reallocated, and Bob mentioned sort of the processes whereby that occurs and why that might occur. That would be something to watch as we move forward into the year. On Section 232, we're also taking a mark on that, which is we're awaiting some additional interpretive guidance from the agencies. We're evaluating with our partners, many of whom are the importer of record, to completely finalize that. We estimate that that has the potential to be in the $200-ish million range, which as I mentioned, would have the potential of being offset by some of the reallocation of transmission costs.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

We don't have exact precision on how those two will balance, but they're, they seem to be somewhat generally in the same area. Those are the two things to watch going forward.

Nick Campanella
Nick Campanella
Analyst at Barclays

Thank you.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

You bet.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Shar Pourreza with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Shar Pourreza
Shar Pourreza
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Hey, guys. Good morning.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Morning.

Shar Pourreza
Shar Pourreza
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Just real quick on Millstone. Obviously, you guys highlighted Governor Lamont recently touted the savings generated for ratepayers by Millstone. I guess, how much headroom do you have to recontract at the higher prices? Maybe just elaborate a little bit further on the alternative paths you may have outside of the DEEP process. This is obviously something we're all monitoring given the affordability rhetoric, Connecticut necessarily hasn't been very open to data centers. Are we talking about a virtual deal here? Thanks.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Hey, Shar. First of all, it's great that we can talk about Millstone with you again. I feel like it's been a while.

Shar Pourreza
Shar Pourreza
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Finally.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Since we've talked last. You're right. We're very pleased with the governor's comments. Katie Dykes also talked about the value of the existing PPA. Just as a reminder, you know, currently contracted a little more than half through August of 2029. The process at Millstone today in Connecticut would be for a procurement, you know, we would expect after the expiration of the existing PPA. There's not in that process a limit on how much could be potentially contracted with the state.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

As we've talked about in the past, other states in New England have also expressed an interest, and we're certainly happy to work with them as well, because they recognize the value of Millstone the same way that we do. As to data centers, you know, we continue to have some interest from data centers to contract there. I do wanna reiterate what we've said in the past, which is, you know, our view is any outcome there needs to have the support of stakeholders in Connecticut. We think that's the smart way to pursue it. What's in front of us right now is this RFP, and we'll continue working on that.

Shar Pourreza
Shar Pourreza
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Got it. Appreciate it. Thanks for that, Bob. I've been waiting years for you to answer my Millstone questions. Just on nuclear on the topic, obviously Dominion in the past has really focused on SMRs, but there seems to be a little bit of a momentum building from a consortium of utilities looking to build, you know, new AP1000s with some cost at inflation protections from the off-takers being the hyperscalers and maybe some backstop from the U.S. government. Would you be sort of willing to participate in this consortium in an AP1000? I guess, what are the puts and takes on SMRs versus the AP1000s? You do have a, like, an early site permit with North Anna, so just curious there. Thanks.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Sure. We do have an early site permit at North Anna, and we also, as you know, have been exploring SMRs as well. I mean, if you step back, as we've talked about before, we're in a very pro-nuclear state in Virginia. I think arguably the most nuclear-friendly state in the U.S., and you can see that from the support of the Governor. Both Senators Kaine and Warner have expressed support for nuclear. The General Assembly a couple years ago passed legislation allowing us to recover some costs for nuclear project development. We filed with the SEC and got an approval for that. We have a lot of the nuclear supply chain here, the nuclear Navy here, and the units at Surry and North Anna.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

As we think about nuclear development in any sense, we're gonna continue to be guided on three principles that were resolute. The first is any structure has to address first of a kind risk. If we're talking about SMRs, we need to address that. It's gotta address cost overrun risk, so that our customers and our shareholders are not bearing that burden. We need to protect our balance sheet and our business risk profile. We'll continue to investigate, and explore alternatives on the nuclear front, but we're gonna be guided by those principles, and we'll continue to work with policy makers.

Shar Pourreza
Shar Pourreza
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Got it. Appreciate it, guys. Fantastic results. See you in a few days.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Thanks.

Operator

We'll move next to Paul Zimbardo with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Paul Zimbardo
Paul Zimbardo
Analyst at Jefferies

Hi, good morning, team. Thanks for having me on.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Morning, Paul.

Paul Zimbardo
Paul Zimbardo
Analyst at Jefferies

No, thank you. The first I wanted to ask on, obviously you have a unique position in PJM, just thoughts on the backstop procurement, the auction feature, and just if there's any ways that you can accelerate generation or kinda spread the cost more broadly across PJM, but just kinda overall thoughts on that process.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Paul, thanks for that question. You know, we support PJM's effort to develop a backstop auction or process to get additional capacity for load serving entities that aren't developing generation or lack a state-regulated framework to do that. You know, we're different. We're vertically integrated. It doesn't change our existing process. We don't expect a change to our plan. We have an integrated resource plan that's designed to meet policy goals in Virginia and the incredible demand growth that we're experiencing and that includes, as you know, incremental generation. It is also important to note as you think about this, the difference between the DOM Zone, which we serve as a transmission operator, and our load serving entity that we serve from a generation standpoint.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

We'll take a look at the process that PJM is ultimately doing. The plan that we have is through our state regulated utility vertically integrated. We're gonna need to build generation to serve load in Virginia regardless of the outcome of the PJM process.

Paul Zimbardo
Paul Zimbardo
Analyst at Jefferies

Okay. No, very, very true. Then if I could follow up on the battery bill, the successful one there. Thank you for the color. Any way to kind of frame the cadence of that? Should we kind of think about the megawatt deployment targets as ratable or kind of more backend loaded, front-end loaded? Any kind of shaping would be useful too.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

Yeah, Paul, we probably don't have great guidance on how to model exactly what that cadence will look like. We'll take steps to start accelerating that spend, which we recover via rider mechanism in Virginia, as quickly as we possibly can. I think there'll be some upward bias in our five-year capital plan associated with that, and then you'll likely see in the 30s you'll start seeing a higher run rate associated with that. I would say stay tuned for that IRP 'cause that'll show where the model sort of selects those installations coming in.

Paul Zimbardo
Paul Zimbardo
Analyst at Jefferies

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

We'll move next to Steve D'Ambrisi with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Steve D'Ambrisi
Steve D'Ambrisi
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Hey, Bob and Steven. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Good morning.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Morning.

Steve D'Ambrisi
Steve D'Ambrisi
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

We've talked about the battery storage, but you added up to slide three, the line, monitoring catalyst that could enhance or extend the growth rate. Can you just talk a little bit about, 1, what that means and what the buckets are? Presumably it's storage, Millstone, potentially an acceleration of data center, but just what, I guess, of those could either drive an enhancement or an extension and just how you're thinking about adding that language to the slides. Thanks.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

Thanks, Steve. I'm glad you noticed that language. It was pretty deliberate, which is, as we mentioned in the script, I'd say first and foremost, our growth is about meeting our customers' needs, quickly, affordably and reliably. I think we feel like we've positioned the company to be ideally situated to meet accelerating needs across generation, transmission, and distribution. That's why fortressing our balance sheet as part of the business review was so critical as we saw the need for incremental capital coming. You've seen this trend reflected in our most recent Q4 call update. The most recent was an increase of 30% of capital over the five-year plan, the one before that was about 15% higher than the prior. We continue to see those opportunities to deploy regulated capital to serve our customers.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

The battery storage legislation is just an example of that, but it definitely expands beyond that, which is across, as I mentioned, other forms of generation, transmission opportunities, broadly distribution. Certainly I would say battery storage is a potential catalyst. I'd say more generally regulated capital across other applications is a catalyst that we see in the potential, you know, 5+year plan. You correctly ascertained Millstone, which we view as a potential for another win-win for customers. We'll be in a position to share more on that later this year. I'd say we feel like we've been appropriately conservative in our plan around Millstone.

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

To the extent that we're successful in finding a win-win for customers that would have the dual benefit of continuing to hedge that exposure for Connecticut customers, much like the first contract has done, and also potentially recognize the increased value across nuclear capacity in the United States.

Steve D'Ambrisi
Steve D'Ambrisi
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Great. That's helpful. Then can you just on the Millstone point, you know, I think previously obviously we have the very visible DEEP process, but can you talk about potentially interest from surrounding states and just if there are any formal processes, or if you'd be willing, you know, to contract more than call it the 50% that you've done historically?

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Yeah. The answer to the second question is yes, we'd be willing to contract more than the 55%. Other states don't have a formal process in place, the way Connecticut does. We've certainly been talking to them. I think they've.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

You know, they've expressed interest.

Steve D'Ambrisi
Steve D'Ambrisi
Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you very much.

Operator

Taking the question from Anthony Crowdell with Mizuho. Your line is open.

Anthony Crowdell
Anthony Crowdell
Analyst at Mizuho

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple here. On the CVOW installation cadence, you're averaging about two days per turbine on recent installations. Just what gives you confidence this pace is sustainable as you move through the project?

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

A great question, Anthony. Let's take a step back for a second. You know, we've been building projects on time and on budget for a long time, whether it's CVOW or the combined cycles we built in 2010 or big transmission projects. You know, building infrastructure well is one of our strengths. For CVOW, we got 1st power to the grid in March, which was in line the original timeline. That was a big milestone. As for turbine installations, we noted upfront, we have been able to ramp installation productivity meaningfully. You know, if you think about some of the other parts of this project, you know, think about transition pieces or monopiles. When we started off, those were modest.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

I think we did four monopiles in May of 2024, the first month we were doing those. We did something like 13 transition pieces in January of 2025, which was the first month we did those. By the time you got to the end, we were doing 21 monopiles in a month and 38 transition pieces. A really dramatic improvement as we went along. We're seeing that same dynamic that's playing out here where we, you know, start with the measure twice and cut once approach that we've learned in doing big projects over the years. That rate is accelerating. I think we've got a lot of opportunities to optimize that process more. We also started in the winter. The winter months are the worst weather months.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Now that we're in the summer, that'll give us more opportunities to refine our process and improve cadence. If you think about that, you take all that together, the productivity progression, improving weather windows, that's what gives us confidence in hitting the timeline. I'd say, you know, really what's most important, three things. One, is it's the fastest source of new power for our customers. Two, it's the most affordable option. Three, we have great confidence in our financial plan to be durable and resilient as we work through construction.

Anthony Crowdell
Anthony Crowdell
Analyst at Mizuho

Great. If I could just throw in a follow-up on the balance sheet. I believe the target's above 15%. As you know, the CVOW construction kinda, you know, winds down. I think rate base investment accelerates. Are there any key risks that you highlight to maintaining above the 15%?

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

No, Anthony. We've put out a financing plan as part of the Q4 call that is 100% supportive of maintaining that cushion, which we've indicated we think is adequate in order to safeguard from unintended headwinds that we may face. I'm really pleased with where the balance sheet is as a result of the business review. As I mentioned earlier, pleased with where we printed in 25, over 15 and LTM above that as well. I think you take everything put together, and we're in great shape on the balance sheet. We're already at that cushion level. It's not a situation where we're ramping over time to get there.

Anthony Crowdell
Anthony Crowdell
Analyst at Mizuho

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Thank you, Anthony.

Operator

We'll move next to Richard Sunderland with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Richard Sunderland
Richard Sunderland
Analyst at Truist Securities

Hey, good morning. Thank you for the time today.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Morning.

Richard Sunderland
Richard Sunderland
Analyst at Truist Securities

Circling back to that slide three commentary and the addition at the bottom. You know, appreciate the buckets and what are some of the pieces there. You've already, I guess, expressed a bias on the growth rate. Just thinking, you know, more about how these opportunities aggregate, is it still about working in the range of that 5%-7% growth, or do you see the potential for structurally higher growth over time?

Steven Ridge
Steven Ridge
EVP and CFO at Dominion Energy

That's a very clever question, Rich. I think we've said it exactly as we wanna say it, which I think I mentioned our plan is appropriately conservative, not unreasonably so. We are focused on building a track record of successful high-quality execution quarter after quarter, year after year. I think we feel very well positioned with the tailwinds we have, the strength of the balance sheet to be in a position to monitor catalysts that will enhance our and/or extend our long-term growth rate range.

Richard Sunderland
Richard Sunderland
Analyst at Truist Securities

Very clear. Thank you. Had to try. On the battery side, I know we've picked out some of the different components and thinking around there, but I am curious on the long duration component. How do you think you might address that? Any thoughts on technology and timing? Just, you know, any opportunity there, around long duration in the next, say, five to 10 years, or is that more gonna be in the out years?

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Yeah, a little early on giving specificity on that. I mean, we've got a couple of pilots on longer duration storage underway right now, evaluating technologies. As a result of this legislation, we'll continue to ramp that up, explore more opportunities with more vendors. We're not really in a position to identify specifics on that today.

Richard Sunderland
Richard Sunderland
Analyst at Truist Securities

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

We'll move next to Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Carly Davenport
Carly Davenport
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I just had a quick follow-up on Anthony's question on the cadence of the turbine installation. I know you've mentioned the pace has sort of picked up here as you've already gone through and honed the best practices. I guess, should we think about that two turbines, two days per turbine as the target, or are there still any identifiable items that could get you towards maybe that day to day and a half range that maybe have been quoted for some other projects out there?

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

We're always interested in getting that number down, and we will continue to push for that. The main message here is the really impressive improvement that the team has made each time with the pace that they've been able to install. I mean, there's obviously a limit on that curve, but we're gonna continue to push our way down that. We'll update on installation cadence on every call, and we'll have an opportunity to talk about the ways that we have improved. I expect we're gonna continue like we did with monopiles and transition pieces to get the pace up faster as we go along.

Carly Davenport
Carly Davenport
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Got it. Okay. That's super helpful. Thank you. Just on the data center pipeline, I know you guys are uniquely positioned in PJM, but just curious if you're seeing any shifts in terms of the cadence of load development or progression through your pipeline due to some of the broader uncertainty on, you know, the constructs in PJM governing pricing of capacity and kind of cost allocation.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

No, we continue to see incredibly strong demand for new data centers, in Virginia. You know, we noted in our prepared remarks we've added commitments in all stages of contracting since December. That interest has not waned at all in recent months. Short answer is no detectable change.

Carly Davenport
Carly Davenport
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Great. Thank you for the time.

Operator

One moment. I would now like to turn the call to Bob Blue for closing remarks.

Bob Blue
Bob Blue
Chair, President, and CEO at Dominion Energy

Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to join the call today. Please enjoy the rest of your day.

Operator

Thank you. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Bob Blue
      Bob Blue
      Chair, President, and CEO
    • David McFarland
      David McFarland
      SVP of Investor Relations and Treasurer
    • Steven Ridge
      Steven Ridge
      EVP and CFO
Analysts
Powered by Quartr