Exciting news for the Coalition and the community. Given the totality of the threats we face, and the interests from people to get involved in “making the sausage,” we have expanded our Board. With threats that range from local, state, and now federal levels, we need to ensure the voices of regular citizens are expanded and heard.
Please welcome our new Board members — Rachel Ellis and Jessica Grove! We are quite sure you have seen them at Board meetings, Planning Commission meetings, and on the local news.
On to updates!
Dominion Power is now finally admitting that power demand will be QUADRUPLING due to Data Centers, and to meet that kind of load they need to build lots of new transmission line infrastructure AND new generation. Then, like used-up snake oil salesmen, with their next breath you won’t believe what they try to sell us. They claim the NEED to invest billions in infrastructure AND power generation isn’t about Data Centers…. it’s because our grid is required to expand to meet our clean energy goals.
Talk about double speak. WE ARE NOT going to meet those clean energy goals (even though we WERE on track) for primarily ONE reason: The ‘stratospheric’ (Wash Post wording we are borrowing) Data Center power needs.
Don’t believe us? Watch this most recent piece on what is happening to Virginia’s electrical grid.
“Think of the last five years, basically the power demand from data centers and our service territory, doubled. And looking forward over the next 15 years, we projected that power demand from data centers is likely to quadruple,” said Ruby.”
Our Prince William County community has lit a fire that has melted away all the lies and obfuscation coming from the Data Center industry, the sellout Politicians, and from Dominion Energy itself.
The Data Center industry is facing an existential threat – along with the rest of us – due to their growth model, which is totally unsustainable. Even Mark Zuckerberg can tell.
“With AI models requiring ever greater investment to improve “there is a capital question of at what point it stops being worth it to put the capital in,” Zuckerberg said. “But I actually think that, before we run into that, we’re going to run into energy constraints.””
“He said that while software is only “somewhat regulated” the energy industry is a heavily regulated sector. “When you’re talking about building large new power plants or large build-outs and building transmission lines that cross public or private land… you’re talking about many years of lead time.””
“He added: “If we wanted to stand up some massive facility, to power that is a very long-term project. I think [some people will] do it, but I don’t think this is something that can be quite as magical as ‘you get a level of AI, get a bunch of capital, and put it in [a big data center].'”
As a community, we must approach this threat from a multi-faceted strategy on many fronts.
- We cannot neglect the local data center approvals
- We need to stay on top of the need for state regulatory oversight
- We need to be prepared to weigh in on a federal level as the Data Center industry impacts grid reliability nationwide
- We must also be vigilant keeping track of transmission line applications to crisscross our communities from all directions.
Here are upcoming meetings:
- 4/29 Community Meeting: Stack Data Center – Bristow Campus – 7-8:30 PM Sweeney Barn (details below)
- 4/30 Community Meeting: Stack Data Center – Bristow Campus – 7-8:30 PM Sweeney Barn (details below)
- 4/30 Dominion Energy virtual meeting: Morrisville-Wishing Star trunk line expansion thru PWC – Noon-1 PM
- 5/8 Planning Commission meeting: Vulcan/AWS data center (near Manassas Mall) – details forthcoming
- 5/14 BOCS Meeting: Data Center Opportunity Zone vote – details forthcoming
- 6/4 BOCS meeting: Mid-County Industrial Park data center rezoning and proffers vote
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