8 Utility Charges Virginians Pay Without Ever Asking Why

Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore wind project off the Virginia coast is now worth more than $11 billion.

A separate company owns the power it will produce; Dominion just sends the bill for it every month.

Regulators only just finished deciding what that bill should look like for the year ahead.

These are the utility charges Virginians pay, often without ever asking why.

Note: This is general information, not financial or legal advice. Utility charges, riders, and program rules are subject to change, so confirm current charges with the Virginia State Corporation Commission or your provider.

1. Deferred Fuel Cost Charge

A line called the Deferred Fuel Cost Charge shows up on Dominion Energy Virginia bills every month. It isn’t the same as the regular fuel adjustment charge.

It’s a different company’s money.

The company’s current tariff sets the charge at 0.2901 cents per kilowatt-hour, about $2.90 a month for a typical household using 1,000 kilowatt-hours.

That money doesn’t go to Dominion.

It pays off bonds owned by Virginia Power Fuel Securitization LLC, a company Dominion created for the sole purpose of collecting on fuel costs the utility already spent, approved in a financing order.

Dominion just collects the payment and passes it along.

The rate adjusts at least twice a year until those bonds are paid off.

2. Grid Transmission Rider

Rider T1 covers what Dominion Energy Virginia pays PJM, the regional operator that runs Virginia’s power grid.

Much of that grid work has nothing to do with a house.

State regulators approved a $0.94-a-month increase to Rider T1 on July 31, 2026, largely to build the transmission lines and substations that connect massive data centers to the grid.

Residential customers pay a share of that buildout too.

The state’s largest electricity users keep growing. Dominion’s transmission bill grows right along with them.

Regulators have now ordered Dominion to make future data center hookups pay their own way.

That change won’t happen overnight.

3. Sales and Use Surcharge

A surcharge on Dominion Energy Virginia bills covers taxes the company owes on its own equipment, not power a customer used.

Someone else’s tax bill.

The tax was never the customer’s to begin with.

The company’s filed rate schedule sets the Sales and Use Surcharge at $0.000921 per kilowatt-hour for residential customers.

That adds up to about 92 cents a month, or roughly $11 a year, on a typical 1,000-kilowatt-hour bill.

That money reimburses Dominion for sales tax on equipment and leases the company buys, never on power the customer used.

Every dollar of it traces back to something Dominion purchased, never to the electricity a customer’s meter recorded.

4. Coal Ash Cleanup Rider

Dominion Energy Virginia’s Rider CCR (short for Closure of Coal Combustion Residuals, the utility’s name for coal ash) pays for a cleanup the company didn’t choose to start.

State lawmakers ordered it.

A 2019 Virginia law required Dominion to seal or recycle coal ash sitting in unlined ponds at four old power stations, including Chesterfield and Possum Point, after regulators found contaminants leaking into nearby water.

Dominion filed a request with state regulators in April 2026 for an incremental 53 cents a month on a typical 1,000-kilowatt-hour bill to keep that cleanup moving.

The company had already collected too much the year before and knocked that overcharge off the new request.

Cleanup at all four sites isn’t expected to finish until 2033.

5. Offshore Wind Rider

Rider OSW is the line that pays for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (OSW) project. Dominion Energy Virginia isn’t who’s generating that power.

A separate company is.

Dominion’s own bill guide notes that OSW Project LLC is the generator behind Rider OSW, with Dominion serving only as the billing agent collecting the payment on its behalf.

The State Corporation Commission settled the question in a final order published July 29, 2026.

Rider OSW is going up, not down: 90 cents more a month for a typical residential customer, for the rate year running September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2027.

Dominion’s cost estimate for the wind farm has risen to $11.1 billion.

The project is now about 81% built, with completion still years away.

6. Broadcast Surcharge

Cox itemizes a Broadcast Surcharge separately from its Virginia TV packages. The fee isn’t optional once a customer signs up for live channels.

It funds someone else’s content.

Cox’s own fee schedule lists the charge at $32 a month in the Northern Virginia market for 2026, covering what Cox pays broadcasters for the right to carry their channels.

The fee sits outside any promotional or fixed-price deal.

Hampton Roads and Roanoke pay the same broadcast rate but a smaller regional sports add-on.

Broadcasters set that number, not Cox.

7. Reactivation Fee

Cox charges a reactivation fee the moment service comes back on after a nonpayment shutoff. The price depends on how a customer asks for it.

Handling it yourself costs less.

Cox’s August 2026 pricing guide sets the Electronic Reactivation Fee at $20, done through the app or website.

Reactivating by phone costs $25, for asking a person to do it instead.

Many customers assume a shutoff carries one flat fee to fix.

That’s two different prices for the exact same reconnection.

The fee stacks on top of whatever balance triggered the shutoff in the first place. Paying that balance alone doesn’t restore service.

The reactivation fee has to clear too. The cheaper path is doing it online instead of picking up the phone.

8. Your Interim Water Rate

Virginia American Water customers have been paying more since May 2, 2026. The new number on the bill still isn’t final.

It’s called an interim rate.

The company filed for new rates in November 2025.

Interim charges took effect while the State Corporation Commission reviews the request in full.

Virginia American Water, state regulators, and several cities reached a June 2026 settlement that cuts the size of the increase.

Under that deal, a typical residential customer’s bill goes up by about $9 a month, not the $11 the company first asked for.

The settlement still needs the State Corporation Commission’s final sign-off.

Until that ruling lands, the company owes customers a refund, with interest, for any difference between the interim rate and the final one.

Virginia’s Medical Shutoff Delay

Virginia utilities have to grant residential customers extra time before a shutoff when a household reports a serious medical condition.

Many people never ask.

State regulations let a customer delay termination 15 days on just a phone call, then 30 more days once they file a Serious Medical Condition Certification Form with the utility.

A household can use this delay twice within a 12-month period.