Dominion Energy Cumberland Energy Center, Cumberland County, Virginia

Dominion Energy’s biggest gas plant proposal cleared its first real hurdle on Oct. 20, 2026. The Cumberland County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 to grant a conditional use permit for the Cumberland Energy Center, a roughly 3,000 MW combined cycle station in rural central Virginia, about an hour west of Richmond.

At that size it would be the largest gas-fired generator in the state, just short of the Bath County pumped storage station’s maximum output.

Project Scope

Dominion plans two 2-on-1 combined cycle units built to run around the clock as baseload, not as peakers. The plant footprint is reported at 140 to 150 acres off Duncan Store Road in the northern part of the county, inside a landholding of roughly 900 to 970 acres that runs toward the James River. The county’s 2023 land-use plan designates the parcel agricultural/rural residential. Plans filed with the county show 300-foot stacks, a 100-foot vegetated buffer around the property and about 55 acres for the tie-in to transmission lines already crossing the site.

Water is part of the package. The station would draw about 800,000 gallons a day on average, and up to 2 million on peak days, under an agreement tied to the Cobbs Creek Reservoir that Henrico County is building nearby.

Dominion hasn’t released a cost. It has called the project a multibillion-dollar job and said it will cost more than the 944 MW Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center, which regulators approved last year at $1.47 billion. No EPC contractor or turbine supplier has been named, and the company hasn’t said how gas will reach the site.

The county vote doesn’t let anyone break ground. Dominion still needs an air permit from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and approval from the State Corporation Commission, and PJM will decide what grid upgrades the plant needs. Dominion is targeting a 2029 construction start and commercial operation around 2034.

Why It Matters

Dominion says Virginia’s electricity use could nearly double by 2035, driven largely by data centers, and it’s told regulators it may need as many as six new gas plants over two decades alongside solar and storage. Cumberland is the largest of them so far, and it’s meant to cut the utility’s reliance on buying power from the PJM market.

The hearing showed the trade-off. Most speakers backed the plant for its jobs and tax base; the county projects about $502 million in tax revenue over a 36-year operating life. Opponents raised transmission lines, noise, water use and emissions, and Morgan Butler of the Southern Environmental Law Center asked why a rural county should carry the burden of powering data centers elsewhere in the state.

For contractors, the timeline is the headline. A 2029 start puts Cumberland in the same window as the rest of the U.S. gas buildout, when turbine slots and craft labor are already tight. A job this size usually has its EPC lined up years ahead. This one hasn’t named anyone yet.

Project Team & Details