The $67 billion merger promises lower costs, deeper capital and faster grid investment. It also raises questions about Virginia jobs, electricity rates, offshore wind and where the company’s most important decisions will eventually be made.

RICHMOND, Va. Dominion Energy has been embedded in Virginia’s economy for more than a century. Its corporate ancestors operated streetcars, built power plants and connected Virginia’s cities to an expanding electrical grid. Today, the Richmond-based company supplies the electricity that powers most of Hampton Roads, operates major nuclear and natural gas facilities and is building the largest offshore wind project under construction in the United States.

Now, one of Virginia’s most consequential companies could come under the control of a utility headquartered in Florida.

NextEra Energy announced May 18 that it intends to acquire Dominion in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $67 billion. If approved, the combination would create what the companies describe as the world’s largest regulated electric utility business, serving approximately 10 million customer accounts across Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina and operating roughly 110 gigawatts of generating capacity.

The merger would preserve the Dominion Energy Virginia name and establish dual corporate headquarters in Richmond and Juno Beach, Florida. But the balance of control would be clear. NextEra shareholders would own approximately 74.5 percent of the combined company, Dominion shareholders would own 25.5 percent, and NextEra would appoint 10 of the new company’s 14 directors. NextEra Chairman and CEO John Ketchum would lead the combined company.

For Hampton Roads, the transaction is more than a corporate reshuffling. Dominion controls the region’s electric grid, influences the cost and availability of power for industrial development and is investing billions of dollars in the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. The central question is whether NextEra’s financial scale will accelerate those investments or whether Virginia will eventually become one operating territory inside a much larger company whose strategic center of gravity is in Florida.

Dominion’s roots reach back to 1909, when the Virginia Railway & Power Company was formed to consolidate electric utilities and streetcar operations across the state. The company became Virginia Electric and Power Company, widely known as VEPCO, in 1925. Dominion Resources was established as a holding company in 1983, with Virginia Power operating underneath it.

Dominion expanded well beyond Virginia during the following decades. It acquired Consolidated Natural Gas in 2000, adopted the Dominion Energy name in 2017 and completed its acquisition of South Carolina-based SCANA in 2019. More recently, Dominion sold several natural gas distribution businesses to Enbridge as part of a strategic retreat toward regulated electric utilities and contracted energy infrastructure.

At the end of 2025, Dominion employed approximately 15,200 people, including about 6,700 at Virginia Power. The company operated approximately 30.7 gigawatts of generation and tens of thousands of miles of transmission and distribution infrastructure. About 95 percent of its operating earnings came from state-regulated utility operations.

That history matters because Dominion is not simply another Richmond employer. It is one of the Commonwealth’s central economic institutions, with relationships extending through state government, local economic development organizations, major employers, contractors and virtually every community in its service territory.

The merger comes as electricity demand begins rising after years of relatively modest growth. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, advanced manufacturing and the electrification of transportation and buildings are forcing utilities to plan for much larger power requirements.

Nowhere is that pressure more visible than Northern Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers. Virginia’s electricity consumption increased at an average annual rate of 3.1 percent between 2019 and 2024, compared with 0.9 percent nationally. Dominion reported approximately 48.5 gigawatts of contracted data-center demand at the end of 2025 and increased its planned capital spending for 2026 through 2030 to approximately $64.7 billion.

NextEra argues that the combined company would have the borrowing capacity, purchasing power and operating scale needed to build generation and transmission infrastructure more quickly. Together, the companies have identified a pipeline of approximately 130 gigawatts of potential large-load demand, much of it associated with data centers and other power-intensive projects.

That scale could benefit Hampton Roads. Reliable power capacity has become a threshold consideration for manufacturers, shipbuilding suppliers, defense companies and other large industrial users. A utility capable of financing major transmission lines, generation facilities and grid upgrades could strengthen the region’s competitiveness.

But Virginia’s demand growth is heavily concentrated in Northern Virginia. Hampton Roads officials will need to ensure that capital is not disproportionately directed toward serving data centers while industrial sites, military installations and growing communities elsewhere in the Commonwealth wait for grid improvements.

Dominion’s current Virginia plan anticipates approximately 33 gigawatts of new generation investment over the next 20 years. Roughly three-quarters would come from carbon-free generation or storage, with the remainder largely supplied by natural gas. Whether those projects move faster, change form or compete with NextEra investments in Florida will become an important part of the regulatory review.

NextEra and Dominion are proposing $2.25 billion in customer bill credits during the first two years following the merger. Approximately 79 percent would go to Virginia customers, translating to roughly $10 per month for an average Dominion Energy Virginia residential customer during that period. The companies have also said transaction costs will not be passed to customers and that the merger itself will not increase rates.

Those credits are significant, but temporary. They are not a permanent rate reduction or a long-term rate freeze. Virginia customers will still be responsible for the cost of new generation, transmission lines, grid modernization, storm recovery and the infrastructure needed to serve rapidly expanding data-center demand.

NextEra says its larger balance sheet, stronger purchasing power and potentially lower borrowing costs will reduce the cost of future investments. That argument will be central to the case before the Virginia State Corporation Commission. Regulators will need to determine how much of those projected savings will flow to ratepayers, how they will be measured and whether the savings outweigh the risks of transferring control of Virginia’s dominant electric utility to an out-of-state company.

Ownership does not eliminate the SCC’s authority to set Virginia rates. It does, however, influence which investments are proposed, how projects are financed, when new facilities are built and how aggressively the company pursues alternatives.

The most visible Dominion investment in Hampton Roads is the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. The approximately $11.4 billion development includes 176 turbines located about 27 miles off Virginia Beach and is designed to generate 2.6 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power approximately 660,000 homes. The project began delivering electricity in March and is expected to be fully completed in early 2027.

The project has also become a significant economic development initiative. The Port of Virginia has invested more than $220 million to convert Portsmouth Marine Terminal into an offshore wind staging and logistics facility. Dominion says more than 800 Virginia-based workers are currently involved in the project, while long-term operations and maintenance could require more than 1,000 local jobs.

Construction activity is projected to support approximately 900 direct and indirect Virginia jobs annually, with about 60 percent of that employment located in Hampton Roads. The project is expected to generate approximately $143 million in annual economic output during construction.

NextEra has historically been more skeptical of offshore wind than Dominion, favoring onshore wind, solar, nuclear power and natural gas. Ketchum has nevertheless said NextEra feels “very good” about Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind and believes completing the project is the correct decision.

That appears to protect the current project. The larger uncertainty concerns what comes next. Dominion has positioned offshore wind as part of Virginia’s long-term energy system and Hampton Roads’ emerging industrial identity. NextEra could bring additional capital and development experience, but it could also view future offshore projects more cautiously.

For the region, finishing the first 176 turbines is only one measure of success. The more consequential question is whether the merger advances or limits Hampton Roads’ ambition to become a lasting offshore energy manufacturing, operations and supply-chain center.

The companies have committed in the merger agreement to maintaining dual headquarters in Richmond and Juno Beach. Dominion’s utility operations would retain their existing names, and the agreement provides employment protections immediately following the transaction.

Those protections have limits.

The merger agreement generally prevents involuntary employee terminations for 18 months after closing, except in cases involving cause or performance. It also protects certain compensation and benefits for 24 months and limits forced relocations outside a 50-mile radius during the initial 18-month period. Company communications have said there are no relocation plans during the first 24 months.

After that period, the guarantees expire.

Dominion is one of the Richmond region’s largest private employers, with approximately 5,433 employees in the metropolitan area. Many of the employees who maintain power lines, operate plants and serve Virginia customers are likely to remain because those jobs must be performed locally. The greater long-term exposure may be in corporate functions such as finance, strategy, legal affairs, information technology, human resources and investor relations, where the combined company could identify overlapping positions.

Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine has said the vast majority of employees serving Virginia customers should remain, while acknowledging there will “probably” be some future efficiencies. The merger agreement also says Dominion employees should receive fair consideration for positions elsewhere within the combined company, including jobs outside Virginia.

That is the distinction Virginia officials should examine closely. Maintaining a Richmond address is not the same as maintaining Richmond’s current employment base, executive authority or influence over corporate decisions.

The surviving company would be called NextEra Energy. Its CEO would come from NextEra. Nearly three-quarters of its ownership and 10 of its 14 directors would come from the Florida company. Those facts do not guarantee a migration of jobs, but they establish where ultimate control will reside. Over time, routine decisions about promotions, executive succession, departmental consolidation and corporate investment could gradually move personnel and authority toward Florida without any formal announcement that Richmond has lost its headquarters.

The merger still requires approval from Dominion and NextEra shareholders as well as federal and state regulators, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Virginia State Corporation Commission and utility commissions in North Carolina and South Carolina. The companies expect the process to take approximately 12 to 18 months.

As of mid-July, Dominion had said it expected to submit its formal Virginia application during the third quarter of 2026. Once filed, Virginia law gives the SCC an initial 60-day review period that can be extended, with the process generally limited to 180 days. The commission must determine whether the transaction would impair adequate utility service or jeopardize reasonable rates.

The SCC’s review should extend beyond the introductory bill credits. Regulators will need enforceable answers about future employment, Richmond’s corporate functions, grid investment across Virginia, offshore wind, borrowing costs, storm response and how the company will allocate capital between Florida and Virginia.

Dominion reported that its economic development work supported approximately $7.4 billion in new capital investment and 3,640 jobs across Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina during 2025, excluding data-center projects. That role is particularly important in Hampton Roads, where access to reliable and competitively priced electricity can determine whether a major industrial project moves forward.

NextEra may give Dominion greater financial capacity to meet an extraordinary period of electricity demand. The merger could strengthen the grid, improve access to capital and help Virginia build new infrastructure faster.

It could also reduce Virginia’s control over a company that has shaped the Commonwealth’s economy for more than a century.

The ultimate test will not be whether Dominion’s name remains on utility trucks or whether Richmond remains printed on the company’s letterhead. It will be whether Virginia customers receive lasting savings, whether Hampton Roads receives the grid and offshore investments it needs and whether the people making the most important decisions remain connected to the communities those decisions affect.

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