Dominion News Releases

November 3, 2000

Dominion Energy to Purchase Cleveland Thermal Energy System

RICHMOND, Va. -- Dominion Energy, a subsidiary of Dominion (NYSE: D), the nation's largest fully integrated electricity and natural gas company, signed Thursday an agreement with Cleveland Thermal Energy Corp. and Cleveland District Cooling Corp. to purchase Cleveland Energy Resources, a provider of steam and chilled water to downtown Cleveland.

Upon acquisition the business will be known as Dominion Cleveland Thermal. It will serve 100 customers in downtown Cleveland, including the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and Cleveland State University.

"Our goal is to provide downtown Cleveland with a source of economical and reliable steam and chilled water," said Thomas F. Farrell II, chief executive officer of Dominion Energy. "Dominion plans to expand this system to serve new construction and additional existing buildings downtown. We also plan to invest capital in the system to make it more efficient and reliable."

The acquisition increases Dominion's presence in Ohio. Dominion East Ohio, a Cleveland-based subsidiary, provides natural gas to more than 1.2 million residential, commercial, and industrial customers in 400 eastern and western Ohio communities. Another Dominion unit, Dominion East Ohio Energy, offers competitively priced natural gas and a variety of other products and services in the state.

Cleveland Thermal Energy Corp. and Cleveland District Cooling Corp. are owned by Mid-America Capital Resources, Inc., a subsidiary of IPALCO Enterprises, Inc.

Dominion Energy manages the generation portfolio, gas pipeline and storage system and wholesale energy and trading arm for Dominion of Richmond, Va. Dominion has a power generation portfolio of more than 19,000 megawatts, which is expected to grow to more than 28,000 megawatts by 2005. Dominion is also one of the largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and production companies in North America, with 2.8 trillion cubic feet of equivalent reserves. The company has 7,600 miles of interstate natural gas pipeline with more than 650 billion cubic feet of annual natural gas throughput. Dominion also serves 3.8 million retail natural gas and electric customers. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Internet site at www.dom.com.

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