Brown may be the new green.

Dominion Virgina Power wants to expanding its efforts to swap coal for biomass, animal and plant waste matter.

On Monday June 27 Virginia’s electrical utility, asked the Virginia State Corporation Commission for approval to convert three of its coal-fired plants into biomass-fueled generators. The change would, according to Dominion, add 150 MW of generation capacity to the grid while at the same time helping the company reach its 2025 goal of 15% renewable electricity generation.

“The converted units will provide low-cost, renewable, base load energy, while promoting economic development through the use of a locally produced fuel,” said Dominion Generation CEO David Christian.

The primary source of biomass for the plants would be leftover wood from local timber operations.

Even with possible benefits to the local economy, the conversion of the three plants would cost a total of about $165 million, which would add about 14 cents on monthly bills for residential customers.

But, Dominion said that the conversion would pay-off in the long run because the coal plants are now used as back-up peaking plants and run only about 25% of the time. With the use of cheap biomass, the utility would use the plants as base load generators and would therefore be running about 90% of the time.