It’s in the national news coverage everywhere we turn. In a nutshell, Northern Virginia, as the data center hub of the world, is facing a crisis, in both our access to reliable power, and with our clean air and water. And Dominion Energy is the “parasite” feeding off its Data Center “host.”
Buckle up — watch your electricity bills skyrocket and get ready for more fossil fuel generation like gas and coal to power the wealthiest industry in the world … until nuclear power plants in multiple proposals throughout the state, can be “fast tracked’ through the process.
While Dominion Energy investors rake in the profits, we have the privilege of having a first-row seat to the industrialization of Virginia — while watching our quality of life and our pocketbooks dwindle.
Here are some recent articles zeroing in on the tsunami we are facing:
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Dominion Energy, Inc. (D) 2024 Investor Meeting Transcript | Seeking Alpha March 1, 2024
Quote from Dominion Energy President/CEO Robert Blue: (The President of Dominion Energy only mentions Eastern Loudoun County, but Prince William County is expected to surpass Loudoun’s data center development by more than double.)
“Turning to growth. First, the growth we’re seeing in our territory is real. Eight of the Dom zones all-time highest summer demand peaks along with six of the Dom zones all-time highest overall demand peaks were just in the last 12 months. PJM’s 2023 forecast, as shown on Slide 11, projects peak summer load growth in the Dom zone of approximately 5% per year for the next 10 years. This increase is driven primarily by data centers, to a lesser extent, electrification in both DEV service territory and in other service areas within Dom zone. Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world. To give you a sense of how unique this is, consider that the region is bigger than the next five largest U.S. markets combined. It’s also larger than the next four international data center markets combined. We continue to plan for and advance projects that will enable incremental increases in power for the data center customers in Eastern Loudoun County.”
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Dominion Energy: Powering The Data Center Capital Of The World (NYSE:D) | Seeking Alpha April 5, 2024
Electricity Demand Fueling Dominion’s Capital Investment
“There are more data centers under development and each data center is going to demand more and more power. Dominion is the primary provider of that power and this demand surge is encouraging its development of more power plants.”
“The way state-regulated utilities work is that they have a sort of pre-planned profit margin on new investments somewhere around 10%. The regulatory bodies will approve base rate increases charged to customers so as to fund the utility company’s development of new power sources.”
“In ordinary circumstances, the barrier to growth is that it can be difficult to get the regulator’s approval to increase rates because the regulators want to keep power accessible to consumers. However, in NOVA, there is a clear shortage of power to service upcoming demand which is essentially forcing the hand of regulators and making it easy for Dominion to get massive projects approved.”
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Now what the heck do we do about data centers? • Virginia Mercury April 3, 2024
“Crisis is not too strong a word to describe the unchecked proliferation of power-hungry data centers in Northern Virginia and around the state. Virginia utilities do not have the energy or transmission capacity to handle the enormous increases in energy consumption. Dominion Energy projects a doubling of CO2 and a new fossil fuel buildout. Drinking water sources are imperiled.”
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WE are not helpless. Each and every one of you who reaches out to your local, state, and federal leaders can ensure they no longer ignore this fast-approaching crisis.
The solution is NOT to turn our state inside out and upside down to meet the demands of one industry. It IS to deal honestly and immediately with the outrageous expectation that we should sacrifice our homes, our communities, our natural and cultural resources, our pocketbooks, and our reliable clean energy for the wealthiest corporations in the world and for the investors of a monopoly power utility.
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