Dear Coalition Friends and Supporters,
How do humans combat a virus? Our white blood cells are our defense against a virus. What happens if we don’t have that defense? The virus runs rampant.
Our elected leaders at EVERY level of government SHOULD BE like those white blood cells, fighting a virus. They ARE our defense against the impacts of Data Centers on our homes, our property, our electric bills, our air and water quality. Data Centers are a direct threat to our daily quality of life.
Dominion Energy has just disclosed, tucked away in its recent SCC filing, that the Data Center energy peak load demand HAS TRIPLED – just since January 2025.
Dominion-Large-Load-SCC-case-021026.pdf
“6. In total, approximately 70,000 MW of large-load DP Requests are currently advancing through the Company’s queue. This level of requested load is nearly triple the Dominion Zone’s (“DOM Zone”) current all-time peak of 24,678 MW, recorded on January 23, 2025.”
TOO MANY OF OUR ELECTED LEADERS ARE FAILING TO BE OUR DEFENSE.
Read these:
State House punts on measure to make data centers pay more | Localnews | princewilliamtimes.com
“The goal here is to say if they’re building infrastructure that’s going to be primarily for – or entirely for – large, energy-using customers, such as a data center, then they have to pay for it,” McAuliff said in an interview. “So, if 95% [of the infrastructure] is for them, they need to pay 95% of the cost, not just spread it out across everybody else.”
RESIDENTS have been stepping up – more and more every year – to form a defense against the “unconstrained” march of Data Center impacts across our communities – in county, after county, after county.
This year, once again in subzero temperatures waiting in the Gainesville commuter parking lot, we boarded our bus to Richmond to demand change.
This was our 4th Virginia Data Center Reform Lobby Day to try to convince our elected leaders to step up and vote for real change and oversight on the Data Center industry. It was our best turnout yet — there wasn’t an empty seat at the event, 200 participants with local and global media coverage in attendance including Japan and France.
See more pictures here of Lobby day on our Facebook page: Coalition to Protect Prince William County | Facebook
Dominion has NO real plan to meet this exploding, unprecedented power demand. EVERY forecast they have chosen to disclose is out of date within months. They are signing Data Center electricity contracts and making promises they have no clue how they are going to keep. Dominion does not care that WE….YOU…ALL OF US are being forced to suffer the consequences of not only unconstrained energy demands, but unconstrained greed.
In 2021 Dominion Energy predicted we would need 8 Gigawatts of power to meet projected load demand.
By July of 2024, Dominion’s new forecast was up to 23 Gigawatts of power. A mere 6 months later, in December of 2024, the electrical contracts they signed with the Data Center industry was up to 40 Gigawatts of power! Dominion would need 40 nuclear reactors to meet that kind of energy demand.
BUT WAIT!
Remember we told you, in the very beginning of this email, that Dominion had disclosed that they were up to 70 gigawatts of electrical contracts. In the very next sentence of their filing to the SCC, they admit that there is ANOTHER 2-3 Gigawatts of Data Center power demand PER MONTH in the queue – which is 36 Gigawatts of new power demand EVERY YEAR.
“Moreover, the volume of requests continues to grow, with the Company receiving, on average, approximately ten new large-load DP Requests per month, representing a total additional 2,000-3,000 MW of requested load.”
As a reference to understand the kind of power need that is being forecasted: the 2-3000 MW of load (or 2-3 Gigawatts) is equal to the kind of power that 2 to 3 new nuclear power plants – needed every month – could generate. Does any of this seem REASONABLE?!
The virus grows unabated.
A shout out to Cindy Burbank for discovering this new updated Dominion Energy forecast!
Dominion-Large-Load-SCC-case-021026.pdf
The residents of Virginia have had ENOUGH of too many in our government, at EVERY level, waiting for someone ELSE in a leadership role to step up and do the right thing. So WE, the residents from across the Commonwealth, are stepping up instead, to apply the pressure needed to reign in this Data Center virus that has taken over too many facets of our everyday lives.
-> Virginians everywhere are losing their right to affordable reliable electricity.
-> Virginians everywhere are having their property taken by transmission line after transmission line to save the grid from Data Center power overload.
-> Virginians everywhere are breathing nasty diesel fumes and particulates when the Data Cener diesel generators turn on to ensure the grid doesn’t collapse under the weight of the Data Center industry’s 24/7 power needs.
There is NO current magical technology to fix this problem. There is NO deployable small modular nuclear reactor. There is NO “heat re-use” that can absorb up 70 GIGAWATTS of power demand.
AND – If you are wondering about solar power meeting this demand – Here is ANOTHER number to consider:
2.8 MILLION. 2.8 MILLION acres to build out 70 Gigawatts of base load power. Think about it: In order to build out this industrial-scale solar facility footprint for Data Centers, Dominion Energy would need to raze the entire forested green space of: ALL of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, and ALL of the Shenandoah National Park, and EVERYTHING that VOF (Virginia Outdoor Foundation) has protected in Virginia.
NO public utility, NO government mandate will meet this kind of power demand without catastrophic irreversible negative impact on our rising utility bills and this beautiful state.
We want to know:
- Why are Virginia’s elected leaders and Dominion Energy so willing to destroy so much to meet this ludicrous, unconstrained Data Center power grab?
- WHY are the Data Center Industry ‘perceived’ Profits more important than The People?
Stay tuned for details on a collaborative community town hall on March 16th.
Below is a recent utility bill from a resident in Prince William County. Note that the Usage Overview is 85% higher than last year!
WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH.
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