Dominion Energy announced Monday it will significantly boost infrastructure spending over the next five years, even as the utility company projects annual earnings that fall short of Wall Street’s expectations.
The Richmond, Virginia-based power company plans to invest $64.7 billion between 2026 and 2030, marking a substantial increase from its previous five-year budget of $50.1 billion through 2029. This nearly 30% jump reflects the company’s push to handle rapidly growing electricity demands.
Across the nation, utility companies are pouring billions into infrastructure upgrades as they face mounting pressure from severe weather events and unprecedented power requests from data centers supporting artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency operations.
Dominion reported securing contracts for approximately 48.5 gigawatts of data center capacity by December, representing a 1.4 gigawatt increase since September. Major technology corporations including Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Equinix are among the company’s clients, alongside private firms CoreWeave and CyrusOne.
The utility serves Virginia’s data center market, which the company describes as the world’s largest, exceeding the combined capacity of the five next-biggest data center markets in the United States.
Despite the ambitious spending plans, Dominion’s stock price dropped 1.4% in pre-market trading following the earnings announcement. The company projected fiscal 2026 operating earnings between $3.45 and $3.69 per share, with the midpoint falling below analysts’ average prediction of $3.60 per share, based on LSEG data.
Fourth-quarter operating costs rose nearly 11% to $3.33 billion compared to the same period last year, dampening an otherwise strong quarterly performance. However, Dominion’s adjusted earnings for the quarter ending December 31 reached 68 cents per share, slightly exceeding analyst estimates of 67 cents.
