UPDATE: The Vint Hill Gas Insulated Substation Application was DEFERRED.
The January 20 7:00 PM evening BOCS meeting has been CANCELLED.
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Tell the BOCS: NO to Vint Hill Substation. Stand up for the health and well-being of residents. (See action items below.)
Supervisor Vic Angry, now Vice Chair, proclaimed from the dais, “It’s time for bold decisions.”
We AGREE, IT IS TIME, for BOLD ACTION and their opportunity can begin on Tuesday.
It is time to stand up for all of Prince William, no matter where you live in the county. Indeed, our Supervisors need to take a cue from Fauquier County — just say NO. Fauquier commission rejects Dominion’s substation expansion | News | fauquiernow.com
One way or another, all PWC residents are being impacted by the decisions being made by our and other local Boards of Supervisors. Our Supervisors are not helpless or absolved of the impacts we ALL are experiencing.
Higher utility bills hit DC, Northern Virginia as rate hikes take effect
“Under the new structure, regulators created a separate rate class requiring large users — including data centers — to pay higher rates than typical households.
Still, some residents say the increases are already taking a toll.
Janice Howard, a single mother from Woodbridge, says her most recent electric bill jumped nearly $150, despite no change in her family’s daily routine.
“It is $317,” Howard said. “I’m a single mom who works 50 hours a week with a five-year-old. We’re barely home. I don’t understand why my bill jumped up almost $150 when we’re doing absolutely the same thing.”
The vote on the Vint Hill Gas Insulated Substation will be held January 20th, Tuesday evening, at the Board of Supervisors.
Microsoft Word – 26-20Jan-ORD Special Use Permit #SUP2025-00009, Vint Hill Substation
Our Board must stop enabling Dominion Energy to run roughshod over Prince William County.
Is the below statement within the Application true?
WHEREAS, the Board finds that public necessity, convenience, general welfare, and good zoning practice are served by the approval of the request;
Not sure what a Gas Insulated Substation (GIS) is? Click on this link and read our previous blast email.
Here is the article written on the Vint Hill Substation Open House:
Data center demand brings first gas substation to Nokesville | News | princewilliamtimes.com
“Western Prince William County needs an infusion of electricity to avoid getting close to running out of power by as soon as 2027 due to soaring demand from power-hungry data centers.
That will mean big changes for a stretch of Vint Hill Road that’s already a tangle of high-voltage power transmission lines.
Dominion Energy plans a major upgrade of an existing electrical substation near Vint Hill Road and Reid Lane in Nokesville. That’s where a picturesque, mostly rural roadway is interrupted by a confluence of three high-voltage power transmission lines with giant metal poles and towers.
Such substation will use a manmade gas called sulfur hexafluoride to allow the power to move safely though a confined space. Dominion will have to build two 30-foot-tall buildings at the site to house the gas lines and equipment needed for the process.
The downside is that sulfur hexafluoride is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Ward also said the gas will exist in the atmosphere for up to 1,000 years.
Utilities employ safeguards to keep the gas from leaking but some can escape during manufacturing, installation and maintenance of equipment, the EPA website says.
“Leaks from sulfur hexafluoride will be the gift we leave to our descendants — not (just) our grandchildren. Not (just) our grandchildren’s grandchildren,” Ward said.”
How much more is going to cost YOU, the ratepayer, for a Gas Insulated Substation than an Air Insulated Substation? We don’t know, and apparently neither does Dominion Energy. But we do know it will be significantly more expensive. (Time stamp 3:40) Bing Videos
We are dismayed at the lack of forethought given to the ancillary infrastructure required for Data Center Energy demands. FOUR years ago, we pleaded with the Ann Wheeler Board of Supervisors to deny BOTH Village Tech Park and the NTT Campus data center proposals. We EVEN showed with them a map of the transmission line that would be required and the multiple substations that would need to be built.
But, most SHOCKING of all, is that the Daves Store Substation, only one of three that will need to be built to serve the nearly ONE gigawatt of power demand triggered by just those two data center campuses, snuck by OUR Board of Supervisors as PWC’s FIRST actual Gas Insulated Substation (GIS).
And for the community stakeholders, who invest our time volunteering in the PWEEG (Prince William Energy Engagement Meeting), we are especially disgusted with Dominion Energy for not disclosing Daves Store as a Gas Insulated Substation, until it was uncovered by chance. It is NOT even listed on their project page as a GIS.
These are pictures of the Daves Store GIS Substation, located next to the NTT Hyperscale campus, which needs as much power as 144,000 homes on a mere 100 acres.
We the residents DO NOT want this. We don’t want the diesel generators turning on. We don’t want the massive transmission lines. We don’t want the substations.
ENOUGH.
What is being foisted upon the districts in the west of Prince William County is antithetical to transparent and fair democracy.
The Vint Hill Substation is NOT in the best interest our residents. It poses a threat to the health and well-being of our communities, because what WAS disclosed in the Vint Hill Substation meeting – where not ONE supervisor from the Eastern End showed up – was that GIS provides more capacity, such that MORE transmission lines will feed off of it, like the belly of a black widow spider with her long legs, looking for her next meal.
WE, the residents of western Prince William County decry this continued assault of industrialization.
People hear the talk, that for some unknown reason there is a retaliation in our county by the East against the West. That we have too much green space protecting a watershed, too many trees. That we somehow need to be held accountable for a harm we have committed which no one can articulate. That it wasn’t enough that we have experienced the highest population growth in the last twenty years and the most overcrowded schools in the state. That, for some reason, our penance has not been high enough.
But the wrongs being implemented are going to take us ALL down together.
And remember, every email the Coalition writes, with the facts front and center, is a historical archive.
America’s Biggest Power Grid Operator Has an AI Problem—Too Many Data Centers – WSJ
“Rates are going up for consumers. Older power plants are going out of service faster than new ones can be built. And the grid’s capacity is in danger of maxing out during periods of high demand, which could force PJM to call for rolling blackouts during heatwaves or deep freezes to avoid damaging grid infrastructure.
Mark Christie, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said that a few years ago he considered the PJM blackout threat to be on the horizon. “Now I’m saying that the reliability risk is across the street,” he said.”
TAKE ACTION:
- Write the Board of Supervisors at this email address: BOCS@pwcgov.org. VOTE NO ON THE VINT HILL GIS SUBSTATION
- Show up in person January 20, 7 pm: County One Complex, Woodbridge. Go alone or take a friend.
Tell them you have had ENOUGH. We are tired of paying, literally AND figuratively, for their destructive decisions from the dais.
Poll: 92% of Virginians Say Lawmakers Must Do More to Control Data Center Impacts
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