The Planning Commission voted on April 21 to approve a proposal for a 1.2M sq. ft. data center campus 1/2 mile from the southeast end of Haymarket. The Village Place Technology Park of Gainesville along Rte. 55, adjacent to 222 homes in Village Place, will change the previously approved plan from 250 affordable townhouse and apartment homes on the 45.5 acre site to four 70′ tall data center buildings.
Dominion Energy confirmed during a 2/10/21 meeting with county staff, the Coalition, and the applicant, that this project, combined with the power needed for the already approved 4.5M sq. ft. Gainesville Crossing data center campus on Rte. 29 adjacent to Rte. 66, will require a new transmission line and one or possibly two new substations. The route for this new transmission line is yet to be determined, but will most probably affect communities in Gainesville. Because there has been no formal load request from the data center applicants, this new infrastructure is only the estimated minimum possibly required.
While the previous Board could claim ignorance of the Haymarket Amazon data center electrical infrastructure needs, the current Board is fully aware that approval of this project will require new transmission and substation facilities in the Gainesville area. No one can claim their eyes are not wide open to the colossal energy needs of data centers. The impact of their physical footprint and their contribution to climate change cannot be denied.
Final consideration by the Board of Supervisors for this data center application will be scheduled in upcoming weeks.
The Coalition was the respondent representing all potentially impacted communities before the SCC in the case of Amazon’s Haymarket transmission line. Our goal was to protect our environmental and historical assets in the rural crescent, to protect homeowners throughout the western portion of the Gainesville District, and to protect small businesses. Our ultimate goal was to force the end user, the recipient for the bulk of the power needed, to not only pay for their own extension cord, but to have enough of the line buried so that most of the community would be spared its negative impacts. The SCC did require partial burial of the Haymarket line, but did not require that Amazon foot the bill. It was NOT a perfect solution. Some residents and businesses were still impacted by above ground transmission towers and all ratepayers are covering the costs. While Amazon had to sacrifice nothing.
The community took a reasoned approach in the Haymarket Amazon transmission line case, one that would have resulted in the most equitable solution, to use the “line extension policy” in a unique way. Maybe it’s because the folks in the Rural Crescent are accustomed to providing their own infrastructure, but that solution was borne out of thinking outside the box. We almost succeeded. You know the old adage, if at first you don’t succeed – try, try again.
Bulk load customer energy infrastructure is the most extreme example of corporate subsidies we can imagine. Innovation will come faster when these bulk load customers are motivated to make changes. We believe that motivation for innovation will come from requiring that they pay for their own infrastructure. Their infrastructure should not impact investments the little guy has, like our homes, our environment, and our small businesses.
The State Corporate Commission legal staff agreed with this position in their post hearing brief on the Haymarket case, in which they stated most eloquently:
.…the Commission “may wish to require [Amazon] to put some of its own skin into the game. Otherwise, the general public [all of us], already burdened by the environmental and aesthetic impacts of otherwise unneeded transmission projects, [are] also burdened with 100% of the otherwise unnecessary costs.”
The question we should all be asking is: what are we being forced to sacrifice until innovation comes to shrink data servers and to no longer require massive box buildings to house them?
What we see happening in Prince William is industrial blight massive data center buildings, and their associated infrastructure, leapfrogging throughout the county, knowing full well that they will be obsolete in the not too distant future. What will be left behind will remind many of the abandoned steel towns in Pennsylvania.
This is not the county rebranding anyone seeks. You can provide your own input on our county rebranding process currently underway here.
Our communities and our environmental organizations are not adversaries of this Board. We are assets – assets that care about the future of our communities – assets with experience that should be utilized, not maligned.
Let the Board know what you think about this proposal and data centers in general in our county with your own personalized message.
If they don’t hear directly from the citizens of this county, it won’t matter what position the Coalition takes.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”