The totality of the impacts of unrestrained data center development was unknown — until now.
The impacts are now clear: with PJM, our regional transmission line grid operator/manager, unveiling a multi-state solution to the threats of blackouts. It is undeniable that this massive infrastructure demand is “customer” driven — DATA CENTER customers.
Northern Virginia’s Data Center Industry Is Booming. But is it Sustainable? (dcist.com)
“…Data center demand is increasing at “an unprecedented rate,” and has far outstripped regional forecasts for electrical load, according to PJM, a regional organization that coordinates the flow of electricity through the power grid in the Mid-Atlantic…”
Now, after more than a month of investigative deep dive and research by Karen Sheehan, Coalition Director, (which included multiple direct communications with PJM leadership), the Coalition is releasing the analysis – read on for details.
We have been saying for some time: There are very few places in Virginia where citizens will not feel the impacts of this ONE industry. Impacts from massive data center campuses themselves: data center campuses crisscrossing the entire state; power companies cutting down and through beautiful rural and historic assets in Virginia; impacting waterways everywhere; even impacts to OTHER states outside our borders — bringing in power generated from gas, coal, and nuclear.
For nearly a decade, the Coalition has been on the front lines of exposing the data centers’ power demands to this community; as well as their infrastructure needs. Initially, beginning in 2014, our outreach was to the western end of the PWC Gainesville district, because of just ONE AWS campus. Now, in addition to Virginia, those impacts have grown to consume parts of the PJM region to include West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, from amongst the 13 states PJM is responsible for.
Here is what the Coalition established as far back as 2017: Dominion Energy, a public utility, has been foisting the critical operating costs of the single largest consumer of power onto residents. It is NOT debatable that the wealthiest industry in the world has been freeloading off citizens to pay for the very ability to operate their data centers. It was the Coalition to Protect PWC that proposed Amazon should be forced to contribute to THEIR extension cord via the “line extension policy.”
“…In November (2017), an SCC hearing officer also dismissed the idea that Amazon should have to help pay for the transmission system, a concept SCC staff and others suggested was no different than a utility customer who builds a house in a remote location without existing electric infrastructure and has to pay a portion of the cost to service the property under Dominion’s line-extension policy…”
“…”Amazon wants no accountability to the public and Dominion wants the public, not Amazon’s stockholders, to pay for Amazon’s business decisions,” says the letter, signed by Dels. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William and John J. Bell, D-Loudoun, and Sens. Richard H. Stuart, R-Stafford, and Richard H. Black, R-Loudoun.”
Now fast forward to 2023, 6 years later, and instead of merely one extension cord for ONE customer, we are witnessing data centers metastasize throughout Virginia. When you calculate what we are losing, is the exchange fair?
How long are our elected leaders going to open up OUR pockets, as money gets tighter and tighter, to cover the BILLIONS in transmission lines, substations, and new generation to feed the insatiable power appetite of the wealthiest industry in the world?
Why are public utilities allowed and incentivized, with no resistance, to raid OUR futures to subsidize THEIR business model?
What’s in Virginia’s long-delayed 2023 budget deal – Virginia Mercury
“Virginia is home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world, and the budget deal includes up to $140 million in grants for “a data center operator” from the newly created Cloud Computing Cluster Infrastructure Grant Fund. The budget notes that the operator was approved for grant funding by the state’s Major Economic Investment Project Approval Commission on Dec. 13, 2022. In January, the Youngkin administration announced that Amazon Web Services plans to invest $35 billion in Virginia by 2040 “to establish multiple data center campuses across Virginia.”
What’s happening in Henrico County is a current and very tangible example. It is losing its natural resources, its community — losing what makes Virginia our home. The future of Henrico County is Virginia’s future. Our collective future IS at risk.
Virginia: Data center growth seen in Henrico (richmond.com)
“…Transmission lines, meanwhile, take years to work through a process of neighborhood consultation, regulatory review, and permitting for crossing wetlands as state agencies also check for possible impacts on wildlife and historic resources…”
The data center industry footprint is not only consuming our open spaces next to parks, cemeteries and hallowed ground — that industry is consuming our farms, our communities, our water — and jeopardizing our assurance of reliable power. Dominion Energy has been forced to acknowledge that the driver of our power needs doubling was Data Center Load demand.
The analysis presented here is the first group of multiples to follow. It delves into some of the 72 proposals from PJM attempting to address the regional threats caused by rampant data center approvals across Loudoun and Prince William Counties. PJM is in the process of selecting which proposals to recommend, in December 2023, for PJM Board approval.
Virginia is not a dumping ground for data center blight. All that is required is for all of us to wake up and speak up. To ignore the plain truth in front of us is to do so at our own peril.
We have posted the analysis of PJM’s ‘Data Center Planning Initiative’ here. Please understand, this one presentation does NOT outline every proposal. Analysis continues and there is much more information to follow.
Please click on this link: Understanding the ENORMITY of the Data Center Power & Generation Infrastructure
“UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.” The Lorax