Bianca Sanchez, bianca.sanchez@sierraclub.org
RICHMOND, Va. - Today, Sierra Club released its sixth Dirty Truth Report. This year, Dominion Virginia earned an “F” grade for failing to retire coal plants and onboard meaningful cost-saving clean energy. Despite commitments to “reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy,” the utility earned a 0 out of 100 points for the second consecutive year.
The report grades utilities across the country based on how much coal they are retiring, how much gas they are planning to build, and how much renewable energy they are adding. Collectively, the 50 parent companies studied in the 2026 Dirty Truth report scored just 7 points out of 100, earning an F, and the lowest score ever in the history of the report.
See the Full Report on the Dirty Truth Website.
Dominion Virginia's failing grade follows the announcement of a proposed merger between the local utility’s parent company, Dominion Energy, and NextEra Energy, a utility quickly shifting away from clean energy. In Dirty Truth, Dominion Energy scored a 0 out of 100 and NextEra Energy scored a 5 out of 100.
The proposed merger neglects the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) mandates, fails to solve long-term affordability issues, and includes zero commitments to retiring coal plants, limiting costly gas build-out, or meaningfully advancing clean energy to meet the exponential needs of data centers. Over the next five years, Virginians are already on the hook to cover $55 billion in Dominion Energy costs to build out fossil fuel plants and related infrastructure largely attributed to data center demand. The merger will only worsen affordability for customers.
Renewable energy remains the cheapest way to generate electricity, while coal and gas remain expensive and extremely harmful to public health. Despite this, the Dirty Truth Report shows that Dominion Energy is doubling down on dangerous, expensive fossil fuels. This means higher bills for families, more dangerous pollution, and less reliable energy.
“Dirty Truth further proves just how much of a risk the Dominion and NextEra merger poses to Virginians,” said Connor Kish, Director of the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter. “Dominion Virginia has repeatedly jeopardized the health and financial wellbeing of its customers – Virginia’s hard-working families and small businesses – in favor of expanding gas to back power-hungry data centers and their Big Tech owners. What makes us believe merging with NextEra, another low-performing utility, will change that? We at Sierra Club will continue to oppose this mega-merger. We will fight to protect Virginians from the bill increases and pollution concerns that come as utilities race to meet data center demand.”
“The Dirty Truth report has once again revealed utilities’ overwhelming failure to plan a phase-out of their expensive and dirty fossil fuel infrastructure, and transition to clean energy,” said Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender. “Every year that utilities drag their feet on the clean energy transition is another year where families pay record bills for expensive fossil fuels, another year of extreme weather events, and another year of air and water pollution threatening our health. We cannot afford to wait any longer to bring our grid into the 21st century. As artificial intelligence data centers drive demand for energy, utility companies are rushing to expensive and dangerous fossil fuels, leading to soaring electricity prices and worsening air pollution. The time is now for these companies to transition to affordable, reliable, clean energy to build a healthier and more sustainable energy future. The Sierra Club will continue to push utilities to deploy more renewable energy and work to lower costs and emissions.”
View the full report on the Dirty Truth Report Website or here.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.