Last Updated: December 18, 2013

Overview

Virginia is centrally located on the East Coast and extends about 440 miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the Cumberland Gap along its southern border. Its ridges and valleys parallel the spine of the Appalachians, trending from northeast to southwest. Virginia's coastal plain, which includes both the site of the first English settlement in Colonial America and several of the state's modern-day major population centers, occupies the eastern section of the state. The central part of the state is typified by the rolling hills and basins of the Piedmont. To the west are the mountains of the Blue Ridge that open up to the Valley and Ridge region on the western edge of the state.

Coal is Virginia's primary energy resource. Most of the state's coal resources are found in the western Valley and Ridge and Appalachian Plateau regions. The Appalachian Plateau, which cuts across the southwestern corner of Virginia, contains almost all of the state's oil and gas fields as well. Virginia's widely distributed forests provide abundant biomass, and its western mountains supply hydroelectric potential. Strong offshore winds offer an, as yet undeveloped, energy resource.

Energy consumption in Virginia is greater than production. The transportation sector is the leading energy consumer in the state. Virginia has the third largest state-maintained transportation network in the nation including six major interstate highways. Virginia also has two of the nation's busiest commercial airports, the nation's largest coal export port, and one of the East Coast's largest container ports. The state's climate is generally mild, and per capita energy consumption in Virginia is below the national median.

Petroleum

Virginia has a small amount of crude oil production in the extreme southwestern corner of the state. Proved reserves are very small. Drilling for oil and gas elsewhere in Virginia has not been successful. A federal lease sale for exploration of areas in Virginia's offshore was scheduled to take place in 2011 but was cancelled in May 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In December 2010, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced a ban on drilling in federal waters off the Atlantic coast through 2017.

Virginia does not have any crude oil or liquefied petroleum gas pipelines. Petroleum products are delivered to the state by two major petroleum product pipelines, Colonial and Plantation. The Colonial Pipeline has several delivery locations in Virginia on the way to its terminus in New Jersey. The Plantation Pipeline ends in Newington, Virginia in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area. Virginia also receives petroleum products from overseas at its ports in Newport News and Norfolk. The state's only oil refinery, located at Yorktown, ceased operating in 2010 but continued to function as a products terminal, importing finished motor gasoline, diesel fuel, and other products for sale to markets from South Carolina to New York. It was sold in 2011 and the new owners began converting the facility into a storage depot and transportation hub for fuels. The facility's rail and dock facilities have been expanded to accommodate train and tanker deliveries of crude oil. The facility is also connected to the Colonial Pipeline.

Most of the petroleum used in Virginia is consumed as motor gasoline. Several counties in the state are Environmental Protection Agency non-attainment areas and require the use of specially blended motor gasoline. Some petroleum products are used for home heating. About 1 in 10 Virginia households heats with either fuel oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, or other petroleum products.

Natural gas

Virginia's natural gas production has increased more than tenfold since 1991. Most of the state's production is coalbed methane from coal-rich formations rather than from conventional natural gas reservoirs. Virginia's natural gas fields are located in a handful of counties in the southwestern corner of the state. Two of Virginia's coalbed methane fields are among the nation's top 100 natural gas fields as ranked by proven reserves.

Virginia's natural gas production meets less than one-half of state demand. As with most states on the East Coast, the majority of Virginia's natural gas supply is delivered via several major interstate natural gas pipelines. Natural gas supplies come to Virginia primarily from the Gulf Coast region and the Appalachians. However, increased natural gas production in Pennsylvania has led to proposals to reverse flow on interstate pipelines that deliver natural gas to the Northeast, allowing natural gas supplies to flow from Pennsylvania southward into Virginia.

Virginia ships about four-fifths of the natural gas it receives on to other states. The majority of the natural gas moves on to Maryland and from there to other markets in the Northeast. Some of the natural gas deliveries go to Washington, DC and the surrounding Maryland suburbs via the local natural gas utility that operates across state lines. Natural gas is also injected into Virginia's two natural gas storage fields that have a combined capacity of 9.5 billion cubic feet.

Natural gas consumption by Virginia's electric power generators has increased sharply since 2009. By 2011, the electric power sector accounted for more than two-fifths of the total natural gas consumed within the state. Typically around one-fourth of the natural gas delivered to end users in Virginia goes to the residential sector where one in three households uses natural gas for home heating.

Coal

Virginia has more than 100 active coal mines. Recoverable reserves at producing mines are modest at less than 2% of the nation's total and, although Virginia is the 12th most productive among the 25 coal-producing states, its annual production is similarly small. The coal produced in Virginia is bituminous. The majority of the coal mined in Virginia leaves the state.

Most of the coal used within Virginia is consumed by electric power generators. A substantial amount of coal is brought into Virginia, primarily from Kentucky and West Virginia, but a larger amount is shipped out. Virginia coal is sent to about 20 states and a considerable amount of it is exported. Virginia ports are the leading exporters of U.S. coal, typically shipping more than one-third of the nation's total.

Electricity

Although coal historically has dominated electricity generation in Virginia, in 2009 its contribution slipped below that of nuclear power. Nuclear power has been the largest source of electricity generation in the state since 2009. Virginia has two nuclear power plants, each of which houses two reactors. Together these reactors supply about two-fifths of the state's electricity generation. Although Virginia has the largest known undeveloped deposit of uranium in the nation, the source of fuel for nuclear reactors, no production has occurred. Natural gas and coal together provide most of the remaining generation. Natural gas eclipsed coal-fired generation for the first time in 2012. A small amount of electricity is generated from biomass and at hydroelectric facilities.

Virginia consumes much more electricity than it produces. Retail electricity sales are highest to the commercial sector, followed closely by those to the residential sector. Most Virginia households use air conditioning, and more than one-half also use electricity for home heating.

Renewable energy

Virginia has abundant biomass. Almost two-thirds of the state is covered by forest. Wood and wood waste provide Virginia with the majority of the state's net electricity production from biomass. Municipal solid waste and landfill gas also contribute. Biomass as a whole typically provides about 3% of the state's total net generation. Operations at an ethanol plant in the state that was designed to convert barley into ethanol have ceased; however, Virginia has a cellulosic ethanol demonstration facility that converts municipal solid waste into ethanol. Virginia also has five biodiesel plants that use a variety of feedstocks.

Hydroelectric generation is variable and typically contributes less than 2% of Virginia's net generation. The state has both conventional and pumped hydroelectric facilities. Virginia's Bath County Pumped Storage Station, with a generating capacity of 3,003 megawatts, is the largest pumped-storage hydroelectric facility in the world. During periods of low demand, inexpensive power is taken from conventional power plants to pump water from the lower to the upper reservoir. During periods of high demand, the water is released from the upper reservoir and flows to the lower reservoir, running through turbines and generating electricity as it goes. Although the plant uses more power than it generates, it supplies power in periods of peak demand when electricity costs and revenues are highest.

Virginia has minimal onshore wind energy resources. However, substantial wind energy potential exists off Virginia's Atlantic coast and in the Chesapeake Bay. The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy is planning to conduct wind energy research on a lease on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The Virginia Wind Energy Area will be the first OCS wind energy research lease issued to a state agency.

Virginia has established a voluntary renewable portfolio goal encouraging investor-owned utilities to acquire 15% of base year 2007 sales from eligible technologies by 2025. Virginia also enacted a mandatory utility green power option in 2007 that gives electric utility customers the option of purchasing all of their electricity from renewable energy sources.