Dominion Energy Hydrogen Initiatives for 2025: Key Projects, Strategies and Partnerships

Dominion Energy’s Hydrogen Pivot: From Local Pilots to a Regional Power Play

From 2021 to 2024, Dominion Energy’s hydrogen strategy was characterized by cautious exploration. The company initiated small-scale pilot programs focused on a single application: blending low percentages of hydrogen into existing natural gas distribution networks. Projects like the 5% green hydrogen blend for customers in Utah (2023) and a similar pilot in Ohio were designed to test the technical feasibility and safety of using existing infrastructure for a new purpose. This phase was about asking questions: Can we do this safely? What is the immediate emissions impact? The formation of partnerships for the Appalachian (ARCH2) and Southeast hydrogen hubs during this time signaled ambition, but the on-the-ground activity remained localized and experimental.

Beginning in 2025, a clear inflection point emerged. Dominion’s strategy shifted from isolated tests to integrated, large-scale infrastructure development targeting a diverse range of applications. The focus expanded dramatically beyond simple blending. The proposed Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC) represents a move into utility-scale power generation, with turbines designed for a future hydrogen blend. The partnership with Enbridge and SARTA targets the transportation sector, involving the construction of a dedicated solar-powered green hydrogen production facility to fuel public buses. Furthermore, a planned offshore pipeline with Germany and the UK signals an entry into the international hydrogen trade. This diversification from residential heating to power generation, transport, and international commerce shows that hydrogen is no longer a niche R&D project. It has become a central pillar in Dominion’s long-term planning, with the company now building new, purpose-built assets rather than just retrofitting old ones. This transition from testing to building presents a new opportunity to establish market leadership but also introduces the risk of managing large, complex, and capital-intensive projects with long-term regulatory and technological uncertainties.

An Expanding Capital Commitment to Next-Generation Energy

Dominion Energy’s financial strategy reflects its pivot toward a more integrated and ambitious clean energy future, with hydrogen playing a key role. While specific dollar amounts for early-stage pilots were not disclosed, the company’s recent capital plans signal a significant ramp-up. The commitment to projects like the metal-hydrogen battery at Virginia State University and various blending pilots laid the groundwork. The most telling data point is the planned $50.1 billion in capital expenditures from 2025 to 2029. This substantial figure, increased to meet rising power demand from data centers, implicitly supports hydrogen-ready infrastructure like the CERC, which is designed to provide reliable, low-carbon power. This spending plan marks a transition from funding discrete experiments to financing a systemic, infrastructure-level energy transition.

Table: Dominion Energy’s Clean Energy Investments

Building a Hydrogen Ecosystem Through Strategic Alliances

Dominion’s execution strategy relies heavily on a web of strategic partnerships that have evolved in scope and ambition. Early alliances focused on establishing regional coalitions and certifying existing assets. By 2025, these partnerships matured to include co-development of large-scale production facilities, advanced power plants, and international infrastructure. This progression demonstrates a clear strategy: leverage collaboration to de-risk new technologies, access specialized expertise, and build a comprehensive hydrogen value chain, from production and storage to end-use.

Table: Dominion Energy’s Key Hydrogen and Clean Tech Partnerships

From Localized Pilots to a Global Stage: Dominion’s Expanding Hydrogen Footprint

Between 2021 and 2024, Dominion’s hydrogen activities were geographically confined to specific, localized pilots within its U.S. operational footprint. Tangible projects were implemented in Utah, with the Project Beehive collaboration and a 5% blending pilot in Delta, and in Ohio, with another blending pilot near Cleveland. While the company joined multi-state coalitions like ARCH2 (Appalachia) and the Southeast Hydrogen Hub, these were largely policy and planning initiatives rather than active, cross-border infrastructure projects. The geographic strategy was to test technology in controlled, domestic environments.

From 2025 onwards, the geographic strategy expanded from isolated state-level projects to the development of integrated regional and international networks. The Southeast U.S. has emerged as the clear epicenter of Dominion’s strategy, with Virginia at its core. The proposed CERC plant in Chesterfield, Virginia, and the state’s role in the Southeast Hydrogen Hub coalition solidify it as an anchor location. Ohio is also evolving from a pilot site to a production hub with the SARTA green hydrogen facility. The most significant leap is the planned involvement in an offshore hydrogen pipeline connecting Germany and the UK. This move transforms Dominion’s geographic scope from purely domestic to international, positioning the company to participate in a future global hydrogen market. This shift indicates that hydrogen is becoming mainstream enough to warrant cross-border infrastructure planning, but it also introduces new geopolitical and international regulatory risks.

Validating the Hydrogen Value Chain: A Maturing Technology Portfolio

Dominion’s journey with hydrogen technology reveals a clear maturation curve. In the 2021–2024 period, the focus was on demonstrating a single technology application: low-percentage hydrogen blending in existing residential gas lines. The pilots in Ohio and Utah were designed to validate the safety and feasibility of this approach, keeping the technology firmly in the pilot stage. The parallel pilot of a metal-hydrogen battery with EnerVenue showed exploration in hydrogen-based storage but remained a one-off demonstration. The technological goal was to prove that hydrogen could be safely introduced into legacy systems at a small scale.

The period from 2025 to today marks a significant advancement toward commercialization and scaling across the hydrogen value chain. The technology applications have diversified and scaled up. We now see a move into green hydrogen production with the solar-powered Enbridge/SARTA facility, a critical step from being a consumer to a producer of clean fuel. In power generation, the planned CERC features hydrogen-ready turbines, shifting the technology from a retrofit concept to a design requirement for new, large-scale commercial assets. This is a powerful validation point, showing confidence that hydrogen will be a viable fuel source for power plants. The strategy has evolved from testing hydrogen’s compatibility with the past (old pipelines) to designing it into the infrastructure of the future (new power plants and production facilities), signaling a clear increase in market confidence and technological readiness.

Table: SWOT Analysis of Dominion Energy’s Hydrogen Strategy

From Blueprint to Reality: Signals for the Year Ahead

The most recent data signals that Dominion Energy is moving decisively from planning to execution. The year ahead will be less about announcing new concepts and more about hitting critical milestones for projects already in motion. The most important signal to watch will be the regulatory progress and final investment decision for the Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center. Its approval would be the strongest validation yet of hydrogen’s role in the company’s future generation mix. Concurrently, tangible progress on the SARTA green hydrogen production facility will be a key indicator of the company’s ability to execute on the production side of the value chain.

What is gaining traction is the use of hydrogen for reliable, dispatchable power to support intermittent renewables and meet massive industrial demand from sectors like data centers. The focus is clearly shifting away from small residential blending pilots toward these larger, more impactful applications. Market actors should pay close attention to announcements regarding offtake agreements for the planned hydrogen production and any further details on the infrastructure build-out for the Southeast Hydrogen Hub. These developments will provide concrete evidence of commercial viability and signal the true pace of Dominion’s transition from a traditional utility to a diversified clean energy leader.

Frequently Asked Questions

How has Dominion Energy’s hydrogen strategy evolved since 2021?
Initially, from 2021 to 2024, Dominion’s strategy was focused on cautious, small-scale pilot programs testing low-percentage hydrogen blending in existing natural gas pipelines. Starting in 2025, the strategy shifted dramatically to integrated, large-scale infrastructure projects targeting diverse applications like power generation, transportation fuel, and international trade, moving from retrofitting old assets to building new, purpose-built ones.

What are some key projects that illustrate Dominion’s new, more ambitious strategy?
Key projects that represent this shift include the proposed Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC) with hydrogen-ready turbines for power generation, a partnership with Enbridge and SARTA to build a green hydrogen production facility for public buses, and involvement in a planned offshore hydrogen pipeline connecting Germany and the UK for international trade.

Why is Dominion investing so much in hydrogen and other clean energy projects?
Dominion’s planned $50.1 billion in capital expenditures from 2025 to 2029 is driven by the need to meet surging power demand, particularly from data centers, with reliable, low-carbon energy. Hydrogen-capable infrastructure is a central part of this strategy to ensure grid reliability while advancing the company’s long-term energy transition.

How is Dominion’s strategy expanding beyond the United States?
While early activities were confined to local pilots in states like Ohio and Utah, Dominion’s strategy has expanded to the international stage. The most significant example is its planned involvement in an offshore hydrogen pipeline project connecting Germany and the UK, positioning the company to participate in a future global hydrogen market.

What are the biggest risks Dominion faces with this new, ambitious strategy?
The primary risks have shifted from early technical feasibility to execution challenges. These include managing large, complex, and capital-intensive projects with long development timelines, navigating long-term regulatory and technological uncertainties, and the significant threat of securing regulatory approval for massive projects like the CERC in a competitive environment.

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