NORFOLK, Virginia, March 13, 2026, 6:17 PM EDT
- About 1,000 customers in Norfolk’s Fort Norfolk and Chelsea areas lost power on March 11 after a fault in an underground power line; service was restored and no outages were showing in Norfolk by Friday evening.
- Dominion is pressing ahead with a $64.7 billion spending plan through 2030 as power demand rises in Virginia’s data-center market.
- A Friday market report cited Tocqueville Asset Management’s earlier stake cut, while the latest SEC filing showed 377,759 Dominion shares at the end of 2025.
Dominion Energy had restored all service after an outage knocked out power to roughly 1,000 customers in Norfolk on March 11, with the problem traced to a fault in an underground power line. Real-time outage data showed no customers without service in Norfolk on Friday evening.
The interruption was brief. It still matters now. Dominion is in the middle of a much larger push to expand its grid and generation fleet as electricity demand rises in Virginia, home to what the company says is the world’s largest data-center market. Dominion serves 3.6 million electric customers across Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Dominion shares were last indicated at $63.21 on Friday, up about 0.6% from the previous close. Duke Energy and American Electric Power, two peers that have also been enlarging infrastructure budgets, were both up about 1%.
Friday’s MarketBeat item pointed to Tocqueville Asset Management’s third-quarter reduction in Dominion to 367,501 shares. The latest quarterly portfolio filing with the SEC, dated Feb. 12 for holdings as of Dec. 31, shows Tocqueville holding 377,759 shares worth about $22.1 million, indicating the position was slightly higher by year-end than the third-quarter level cited in the Friday report.
Dominion said on Feb. 23 that it expects 2026 earnings of $3.45 to $3.69 a share and plans $64.7 billion of capital spending from 2026 through 2030. Reuters reported at the time that the midpoint of that forecast fell below Wall Street expectations even as the utility lifted its five-year investment plan by nearly 30%.
“We are seeing the need for incremental investment across our system to ensure continued reliability amid continually growing demand in our service areas,” Chief Financial Officer Steven Ridge said on Dominion’s earnings call. The Motley Fool
Dominion is not alone. Duke Energy raised its five-year spending plan to $103 billion in February, while AEP said it was expanding a capital plan already above $72 billion as big technology customers drove more demand for power.
The catch is cost. Utilities can spend more only if regulators let them recover much of that money, and if customers keep absorbing higher bills. “The conversation has definitely shifted to affordability,” James West, an analyst at Melius Research, said in Reuters’ February report on the sector. Reuters
Ridge told investors Dominion’s stronger growth path will require “successful regulatory and construction execution, stable financing markets, and a thoughtful approach to customer affordability.” Dominion’s board has already declared a quarterly dividend of 66.75 cents a share, payable on March 20. The Motley Fool
