Cumberland County supervisors voted 3-1 on Tuesday to approve Dominion Energy's conditional-use permit for a sprawling natural-gas power station off Duncan Store Road, clearing a major local hurdle for a project that could reshape the rural county's landscape, tax base and electric grid for decades to come.
The vote by the Cumberland County Board of Supervisors green-lights what Dominion calls the Cumberland Energy Center, according to WHRO, which reported the facility is planned for the northwestern part of the county. The station would use two 2-on-1 combined-cycle gas-fired units to generate roughly 3,000 megawatts of baseload power, per POWER Magazine. The proposal is for a roughly 3,000-megawatt combined-cycle plant.
Local approval is only one piece of a much longer regulatory puzzle. Dominion still needs an air permit from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and a finding from the State Corporation Commission that the plant is needed and its costs reasonable for ratepayers, according to the Star-Exponent's reporting. The county's own newsflash page confirms that a conditional-use permit application was formally submitted, though the broader record — including the full site plan and zoning documentation — was not part of the available reporting.
Timeline and Cost Remain Unsettled
Dominion has told reporters it has not finalized an exact cost estimate for the project because major contracts for building the facility are still being negotiated, Virginia Business reported. The company's own account of the schedule, per that same outlet, has it starting construction in 2029 and bringing the plant online sometime between 2033 and 2034 if it secures state and local approvals. Dominion's reported target is to start construction in 2029 and bring the plant online between 2033 and 2034.
Dominion says the facility, once operating, could power about 750,000 homes, and the company projects it would create roughly 450 construction and operations jobs while generating more than $500 million in local tax revenue, according to Virginia Business. The plant would initially run on natural gas, with the company leaving open the possibility of future hydrogen use depending on how technology and fuel markets develop.
A Plant Sized to Outgrow Chesterfield
The scale of the proposal has drawn comparisons to Dominion's other big gas projects elsewhere in the state. POWER Magazine reported the Cumberland station is expected to cost more than the company's 944-megawatt Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center, a $1.47 billion plant described by WRIC as highly controversial in its own right. Virginia Mercury similarly noted that the Cumberland plant would be larger than Dominion's 2,600-megawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, underscoring just how much generating capacity the company is packing into one rural site.
Chesterfield's plant is one of eight natural-gas facilities Dominion has planned to meet what it describes as surging electricity demand, according to Virginia Business's broader reporting on the utility's buildout. That demand growth is driven overwhelmingly by one sector: Dominion says data centers account for roughly 75% of its projected electricity growth, and the company forecasts customer demand climbing about 5% annually over the next two decades, more than doubling by 2045.
Site Size Still in Dispute
Site Size Still in Dispute Even basic details about the Cumberland site remain contested across the available reporting. POWER Magazine described the facility as sited on about 150 acres off Duncan Store Road.
For a county of Cumberland's size, the stakes of Tuesday's vote are significant regardless of which cost or acreage figures eventually prove accurate. Supporters have pointed to the jobs and tax revenue Dominion is promising, while opponents have raised concerns about emissions, water use, noise and the preservation of the county's rural character — a divide that mirrors the opposition environmental groups, nearby residents and General Assembly members raised against the Chesterfield plant, which was approved by the State Corporation Commission.
