2024 Data Center Legislation

Senate Bills

SB191 (Electric utilities; data center demand, allocation of costs among customer classes): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB191 – Senator Suhas Subramanyam

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Electric utilities; data center demand; allocation of costs among customer classes. Directs the State Corporation Commission to ensure that any plan, petition, or proposal from a utility to meet demand associated with data centers considers generation, transmission, and distribution system costs so as to meet such demand at the lowest aggregate reasonable cost. The bill also directs the Commission to initiate a proceeding, on or before December 31, 2024, (i) to determine if the current allocation of costs among customers and the different classifications of customers of electric utilities results in customers that are data centers receiving unreasonable subsidies from other customers or classifications of customers and (ii) if it determines unreasonable subsidies exist, to amend such allocation of costs.

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SB192 (Sales and use tax exemption; data centers): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB192 – Senator Suhas Subramanyam

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Sales and use tax exemption; data centers. Requires data center operators to meet certain energy efficiency standards in order to be eligible for the sales and use tax exemption for data center purchases. Under the bill, a data center operator shall be eligible for the exemption only if such operator demonstrates that (i) its facilities either (a) have a power usage effectiveness score of no greater than 1.2 or (b) for data centers co-located in buildings with other commercial uses, achieve an energy efficiency level of no less than the most efficient 15 percent of similar buildings constructed in the previous five years and (ii) it will procure carbon-free renewable energy and associated renewable energy certificates from facilities equal to 90 percent of its electricity requirements or that its electricity will be otherwise derived from non-carbon-emitting, renewable sources.

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SB284 (Siting of data centers; impacts on resources and historically significant sites): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB284 – Senator Danica Roem

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Siting of data centers; impacts on resources and historically significant sites. Provides that any local government land use application required for the siting of a data center shall only be approved in areas where the data center will (i) have a minimal impact on historic, agricultural, and cultural resources and (ii) not be within one mile of a national park, state park, or other historically significant site.

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SB285 (Siting of data centers; site assessment): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB285 – Senator Danica Roem

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Siting of data centers; site assessment. Requires a locality, prior to any approval for the siting of a data center, to require disclosure of water and power usage at full build-out and perform a site assessment to examine the effect of the data center on water usage, the regional electric grid, and carbon emissions as well as any impacts on agricultural, historic, and cultural resources within the locality.

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SB286 (Electric utilities; underground transmission lines): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB286 – Senator Danica Roem

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Electric utilities; underground transmission lines. Provides that the construction and reconstruction of any underground, in whole or in part, electrical transmission lines of at least 69 kilovolts and less than 500 kilovolts along a highway right-of-way under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation in Planning District 8 where a data center proposal is under construction in an area located within a half mile of a National Battlefield Park and within one mile of a state forest is in the public interest.

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SB288 (Data centers; noise abatement): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB288 – Senator Danica Roem

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Data centers; noise abatement. Provides that any local government land use application required for the siting of a data center shall be approved only in accordance with certain notice and noise abatement requirements. The bill provides that residents within a half-mile radius of the parcel shall receive notice of the proposed data center and that the data center operator shall hold two neighborhood meetings. The bill requires a data center operator to design and build the data center to incorporate sound mitigation methods sufficient to prevent the sound levels emanating from the data center from exceeding the ambient noise levels that were observed in a baseline study, as determined by a third-party acoustic engineer. The bill also provides that upon issuance of a certificate of occupancy, and for five years thereafter, the data center operator shall conduct a noise study performed by a third-party acoustical engineer to document noise levels emanating from the data center measured at the property line of the nearest property to the data center property that is planned or zoned for residential land uses, or other noise sensitive use as reasonably determined by the locality, during peak operation of the data center mechanical equipment. The bill also provides that if the data center operator intends to use backup power generators on the parcel, the operator shall maintain a public website announcing the times when the generators will be in operation.

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SB289 (Stormwater management regulations; enterprise data center operations): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB289 – Senator Danica Roem

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Stormwater management regulations; enterprise data center operations. Directs the State Water Control Board to adopt regulations that require certain stormwater management techniques for land disturbances related to the construction, expansion, or operation of an enterprise data center operation, as defined in the bill, that is located within one mile of any land owned or operated as a unit of the National Park Service or designated as a Virginia State Park or state forest.

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SB664 (Electric utilities; electric distribution infrastructure serving data centers): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB664 – Senator Richard Stuart

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Electric utilities; electric distribution infrastructure serving data centers. Prohibits the costs associated with the construction or extension of any electric distribution infrastructure that primarily serves the load of a data center from being recovered from any other customer.

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SB667 (Cloud Computing Cluster Infrastructure Grant Fund; performance agreement): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB667 – Senator Richard Stuart

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Cloud Computing Cluster Infrastructure Grant Fund; performance agreement. Removes the authority to make commitments related to accelerated permitting, property tax classifications, and other such issues in an agreement between a qualified company and a locality for purposes of the Cloud Computing Cluster Infrastructure Grant Fund.

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SB708 (Pilot program for underground transmission lines; qualifying projects): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+SB708 – Senator Russet Perry

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Pilot program for underground transmission lines; qualifying projects. Increases the maximum capacity of qualifying electrical transmission lines, for purposes of the pilot project for underground transmission lines, from 230 kilovolts to 500 kilovolts. The bill provides that the State Corporation Commission shall approve additional qualifying projects as part of the pilot program that traverse along highways in developed areas where the route of proposed transmission lines and towers traverse areas protected by a scenic easement, view shed easement, areas of registered historic designation, or areas of conservation easements. Under the bill, existing requirements for qualifying projects shall continue to apply to such new category of qualifying projects.

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House Bills

HB116 (Retail Sales and Use tax; exemption for data centers): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+HB116 – Delegate Rip Sullivan

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

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HB337 (Siting of data centers; impacts on resources and historically significant sites): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+HB337 – Delegate Josh Thomas

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Siting of data centers; impacts on resources and historically significant sites. Provides that any local government land use application required for the siting of a data center shall only be approved in areas where the data center will (i) have a minimal impact on historic, agricultural, and cultural resources and (ii) not be within one-half mile of a national park, state park, or other historically significant site.

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HB338 (Siting of data centers; locality to perform site assessment before approval): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+HB338 – Delegate Josh Thomas

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Siting of data centers; site assessment. Requires a locality, prior to any approval for the siting of a data center, to perform a site assessment to examine the effect of the data center on water usage and carbon emissions as well as any impacts on agricultural resources within the locality.

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HB340 (Electric utilities; underground transmission lines): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+HB340 – Delegate Josh Thomas

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

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HB910 (Department of Energy; data center energy usage): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?ses=241&typ=bil&val=hb910 – Delegate Kannan Srinivasan

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Department of Energy; data center energy usage. Requires each data center located in the Commonwealth to make a quarterly energy source report to the Department of Energy’s Division of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency that identifies the amount of energy, disaggregated by the source of energy, consumed by the data center in the previous quarter. The bill requires the Division to publish aggregate deidentified data from such reports on its website.

The bill also directs the Secretary of Commerce and Trade to convene a work group to estimate the future energy demands of the data center industry in the Commonwealth. The bill requires the work group to include representatives from the Department of Energy, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority, the State Corporation Commission, the data center industry, electric utilities, and other interested stakeholders. The Secretary is required to report the findings of the work group to the General Assembly by November 30, 2024.

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HB1010 (Siting of data centers; parks, schools, and residential areas): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+HB1010 – Delegate Ian Lovejoy

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Siting of data centers; parks, schools, and residential areas. Requires that any local government land use application required for the siting of a data center, as defined in the bill, be approved only for areas that are one-quarter mile or more from federal, state, or local parks, schools, and property zoned or used for residential use.

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HB1288 (Public utilities; classification of customers): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+HB1288 – Delegate Michael Webert

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Public utilities; classification of customers. Requires that a public electric utility or a public utility authorized to furnish water or water and sewer service include a separate classification for data centers when satisfying the existing requirement that any rate, toll, charge, or schedule of a public utility is only considered to be just and reasonable by the State Corporation Commission if the public utility has demonstrated that such rates, tolls, charges, or schedules contain reasonable classifications of customers.

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