DEQ fears Northern Virginia lacks electricity to power data centers

Virginia officials are concerned there may not be enough electricity to go around and power Northern Virginia’s data centers under extreme conditions.

The state’s Department of Environmental Quality will consider allowing data centers in Prince William, Fairfax, and Loudoun County (the world’s epicenter for data centers) to use generators to feed the power-hungry server farms.

From the public notice:

Data center operation relies on the use of large amounts of electricity from the grid. DEQ is concerned that the Counties of Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William is an area in which there may not be a sufficient amount of electricity for data centers due to severe, localized constraints in electricity transmission.

A transmission constraint issue exists in the area which may affect the ability to provide enough electricity to data centers through 2025. In particular, the period between March and July 2023 has been identified as a time of potentially acute stress on the transmission capacity of the grid.

In the lead-up to the November 2022 approval of the Prince William Digital Gateway — more than 800 acres next to Manassas National Battlefield Park now earmarked for data center development — residents and public officials were baffled after asking if the county had enough electricity to supply the server farms.

“We don’t know,” said Prince William County Planning Director Meika Daus during a Prince William County Planning Commission meeting on July 20, 2o22.

A public hearing on whether or not to allow generators at the data centers will be held at the DEQ regional office 13901 Crown Court, in Woodbridge, at 11 a.m., February 27, 2023.

PJM Interconnection, the east coast’s electrical grid, was overloaded with demand when temperatures plummeted to the single digits at 4:20 a.m. Christmas Eve, December 24, 2022.

PJM asked large electricity users to curb their electricity use to save energy so there would be enough to power homes and smaller businesses.

They moved a Fairfax County wastewater treatment facility in Lorton to switch on five electrical generators,  removing the plant from the electrical grid. The plant is key to Fairfax County’s wastewater treatment practices and treats 40 million gallons of wastewater a day.

The proliferation of data centers near historical lands and residential neighborhoods is a key campaign issue on February 21, 2023, Special Election for Gainesville District Supervisor for the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.

“[The electricity concerns are] the unforeseen consequences we warned them about,” said Bob Weir, a Republican running a two-way race to finish Peter Candland’s term ending December 31, 2023. Candland resigned after agreeing to sell his home to data center developers in the event the Prince William Digital Gateway was approved.

“In the course of the debate over the Digital Gateway and the recurring power issues in Loudoun resulting from the overdevelopment of data centers, many warned the BOCS that further approvals would have unforeseen consequences regarding power, noise, and carbon emissions. The first of those consequences have now come to pass,” continued Weir.

Democrat Kerensa Sumers is also vying for the seat. Both will participate in a voter forum at Battlefield High School near Haymarket on Thursday, February 9, 2023.

Meanwhile, on Monday, January 30, 2023, a Republican-led House Rules subcommittee killed a resolution from Delegate Danica Roem (D-Prince William) that would have ordered the state’s energy department to study the effects of data centers statewide.

The resolution, HJ522, would have directed the state’s Department of Energy to study the impacts of data center development on Virginia’s environment, economy, energy resources, and ability to meet the state’s outlined carbon-reduction goals. Several members of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration officials opposed the resolution.

There are new plans to expand data centers to other parts of the region, including four new server farms in Stafford County. In January,  Youngkin announced Amazon would invest $35 billion into the state to construct new data centers, — the largest private investment in state history.