Culpeper Star Exponent: Dominion to Culpeper supervisors: Data centers fueling 214% growth in power demand

Dominion to Culpeper supervisors: Data centers fueling 214% growth in power demand (starexponent.com)

Dominion presentation

Steve Precker, Dominion electric transmission communications consultant, gives a presentation to the board of supervisors Tuesday about providing power to the Amazon data center in Stevensburg.

Allison Brophy Champion

 

Fueled by data center development, Dominion Energy projects a 214% growth in power demand in Northern Virginia over the next four years, according to a power delivery presentation for Culpeper County given to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

On the southern fringes of NOVA, Culpeper industry will contribute to that increasing energy demand with its approved Amazon data center slated for construction on a former horse farm along State Route 3 in Stevensburg.

That’s not to mention several other data center projects increasingly knocking on Culpeper’s door in the incentive-laden McDevitt Drive technology zone, shared by the town and county.

County supervisors, at the meeting Tuesday, pressed Dominion executives for specifics on bringing electricity to the massive projects that have proliferated to the north in Loudoun County, generating negative headlines.

For the Amazon project in Culpeper, Dominion is seeking approval from the State Corporation Commission to build a 230 kV transmission line and substation to power the data center campus, according to Steve Precker, an electric transmission communications consultant with Dominion Energy.

Dominion plans to hold a community meeting on the electric project in October and is mailing out postcards and route maps to neighbors, he said, referring people to dominionenergy.com/germanna. Neighbors are invited to come and speak with subject matter experts at the upcoming meeting, Precker said.

“We know this area has a lot of culturally and historically significant sites. Everything we are looking at takes that into account to minimize impact.”

The Amazon data center is what is on most people’s minds at the moment, commented Precker, of the campus planned on the former Magnolia Equestrian Center property.
“Over the past year, we have been doing our due diligence to understand how we can provide energy to that site,” he said. “It will require a substation and transmission lines to get energy to that site.”

Whether the transmission towers, and in what form, will come from the south or the north is undetermined, Precker told the board. Only one new line will be needed to serve the data centers, he added.

He showed a slide of Dominion power pole types: lattice, H-Frame and monopole. Monopoles can reach heights of about 120 feet, but use less right-of-way than H-Frames, about half as tall, according to Precker.

Dominion poles

“We really want to understand community priorities,” he said of involving the board of supervisors and public. “We need to document everything in the area and understand and taking into consideration for potential impacts.”

Precker encouraged the board to continue to be in contact with Dominion as it considers future economic development opportunities and where to site future power infrastructure.

Data center customers typically consume 60 to 90 megawatts of power or greater, Precker told the board. A single megawatt can power 250 homes, he continued.

Data centers are “high energy users,” he said, “with a pretty significant energy load.”

According to a presentation with Sarah Marshall, Dominion Energy manager of state and local affairs, the electric company intends to serve the high-consumption users by building more lines, putting up more and larger towers and constructing additional substations.

Where those will go, over whose land and in whose backyard, by what route and how it will look was up for discussion.

“What we need to provide reliable and consistent power to those customers and surrounding areas means substations, power lines to carry those amounts of loads … we’re looking at a very rapid and significant increase in load growth locally and across Virginia over the next 15 years,” Precker said.

Marshall said residential customers are the company’s first priority and any curtailing of power would occur first for industrial business customers. Dominion’s power generation mix in 2022 was 36% gas, 28% nuclear, 8% coal, 23% purchased and 5.2% hydro and renewables, she said. At back-to-back peak dates over the summer, Dominion used 10% solar to meet the 21,000 megawatt demand, she added.

Dominion projects 5% growth in demand for power annually, Precker stated. He said the Dominion planning group is constantly evaluating the best routes to bring power to data centers.

Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world, Precker said, handling over 70% of the globe’s data storage demands. Dominion is seeing growth to power the centers beyond Loudoun in Prince William, Fauquier, Stafford and Culpeper, Precker continued, as well as southside and southwest corners of Virginia, where even greater growth is projected.

Dominion currently serves nearly 4,200 customers in Culpeper County, said Marshall, and employs more than three dozen people. Another Dominion project includes 45 miles of power lines being put underground in places most prone to outages in Culpeper, she said.

Dominion is also currently working in Culpeper, building middle mile fiber that All Points Broadband will use to bring high speed internet to people in rural areas. Marshall said 36 of 54 miles are under construction with completion of the fiber backbone anticipated by later this year. The hookups by All Point will come shortly after, she stated.

Also in Culpeper County, to support data center growth, Dominion is rebuilding an existing 115 kV line to 230 kV at Batna Road in Stevensburg, feeding two new substations next to the existing Mountain Run substation in the McDevitt technology zone. That project, Cirrus-Keyser, is slated for completion in 2025, according to the presentation, pending SCC approval. Details can be found at dominion.com/cirruskeyser.

Stevensburg Supervisor Susan Gugino asked if the Cirrus-Keyser project was being built to serve future power demands in that corridor, on the town’s edge. Five data center campuses are proposed along McDevitt, she said.

“Is this going to be enough for all of them?” Gugino asked. Projections for the future of AI computing will make the demand even greater, she added.

“I would hate to see us upgrade and then in five years have to upgrade again.”

Precker responded the project was being built to meet demands as they exist now. Additional data centers will likely require additional power lines and substations based on the load needed.

Gugino, who voted against the Amazon data center, said a big concern of hers is Dominion is not planning for today and tomorrow, only yesterday.

“I don’t want to see these lines keep popping up out of nowhere. It’s just a big black hole of what the power is, how large the substation is … we need you guys more into the conversations on that.”

Marshall said she would be happy to work with county staff to provide input and estimates on the projects. Both Dominion executives said the company cannot build infrastructure based on potential projects.

Projects have to be approved before their process can start, requiring sometimes a year or more before SCC approval, they stated.

Catalpa Supervisor Paul Bates, who voted for the Amazon data center, expressed concern about the level of data center projects seeking to locate here — close to 8 million square feet, he said.

“As a longtime resident, we don’t want to see those (power) lines going everywhere,” Bates said.

He lamented historical sites around the future Amazon site — the colonial mansion at Salubria and Hansbrough Ridge, a Battle of Brandy Station historical landmark. Bates said he didn’t realize running a power line to a data center was considered a transmission line. The supervisor said he hoped it wouldn’t come to eminent domain — taking someone’s property to build a data center.

Marshall was quick to respond, “We don’t want to see that either.”

Bates said he hoped Dominion would consider underground lines.

“Don’t have to deal with view shed issue,” he said, adding, “This is something I should have thought long and hard about — how it will impact landowners to serve these customers.”

Marshall said Dominion would look at all the options on how it would get power to Amazon, impacts to historic and environmental resources and cost to customers.

“We are required to serve (power customers),” she said. “If it comes, we have to serve it.”

Bates said he hoped Dominion would take advantage of the utility-scale solar project approved adjacent to the Amazon site. Precker said they had been in discussion with the solar developer about potentially tapping into that power.

Allison Brophy Champion: 540/825-4315

abrophy@starexponent.com