Essay by Eric Worrall
Virginia, the data center capital of the world, could become the next Silicon Valley if they play their cards right. But local green activists are determined the rein in the Data Center “Behemoth”.
Governor Glenn Youngkin just vetoed a climate bill which would have driven up the cost of energy.
Virginia governor vetoes more energy storage despite data centers roaring for more power
Virginia has the largest data center market in the world but imports more energy than any other state. A bill to increase energy storage buildout was unanimously passed by the Senate, but then vetoed by the governor.
MAY 19, 2025 RACHEL METEA
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin used his last veto powers to eliminate most of the General Assembly’s efforts to meet the state’s energy demands and regulate the state’s energy-intensive data center market, the largest data center market in the world. According to Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), Northern Virginia constitutes 13% of all reported data center operational capacity globally and 25% of capacity in the Americas.
The legislation would have tripled the amount of energy storage capacity the state requires its two public utilities to procure under the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The bill required Appalachian Power to petition for at least 780 MW of short-duration capacity by 2040 and 520 MW of long-duration energy storage capacity by 2045 and for public utility Dominion Energy to petition for at least 5,220 MW of short-duration energy storage capacity and 3,480 MW of long-duration energy storage capacity by 2045.
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“The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) is failing Virginians,” the governor said in a statement. “Adding in requirements for the petitioning of additional storage technologies will not change the fact that the law is misguided and does not work. Long-duration energy storage is an expensive technology and if utilities believed it to be the best technology to meet demand, they would be actively seeking permission to build them.”
Dominion, however, has been actively seeking permission to build more energy storage. Dominion’s proposed construction of long-duration energy storage facilities was approved by Virginia’s utility regulator in 2024. In April, Dominion was approved to purchase electricity from third-party storage suppliers. Dominion said its plan for a combination of solar and the storage projects would “result in fuel savings of approximately $6.6 billion over the period of 2022 through 2035. Fuel savings for the full lives of all resources in this Development Plan, which extend through 2073, are approximately $118.5 billion.”
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Read more: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/05/19/virginia-governor-vetoes-more-energy-storage-despite-data-centers-roaring-for-more-power/
Despite Governor Youngkin’s support for keeping energy costs down, there is significant opposition to further expansion of data centers in Virginia.
Report highlights community pushback stalling $64 billion in data center development nationwide
In Virginia, the globe’s largest concentration of data centers, and nationally, local opposition has coalesced into a powerful, bipartisan force.
BY: CHARLES PAULLIN – MAY 21, 2025 5:21 AM
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Then, a couple of years ago, when people began to learn much more about the warehouse-like server farms proliferating at double the earlier rate, the fight strengthened with a meeting in Warrenton.
“That was where we all just started saying, ‘OK, in order to fight this behemoth, we have to have some organizational process,’” Schlossberg said. “We have to be able to communicate. We have to be able to support each other. We have to have a clearinghouse for all the information.”
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At the state level, dozens of bills were introduced in the Virginia General Assembly this year to enact development safeguards, but only a symbolic one about utility costs was signed into law by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
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But many elected officials are approving data centers.
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“They’ll go in somewhere,” Wheeler said, adding her county had resources for responsible planning. “I would rather have that tax revenue in Virginia.”
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Youngkin vetoed a bill that would have had localities require a description of substation needs and a study on the noise the facilities close to homes and schools generate, which can come from their air conditioning units, and onsite power generators. House Democrats killed a requirement for state regulators to review data center power contractsto ensure that electricity generation and transmission lines could support the need.
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Read more: https://virginiamercury.com/2025/05/21/report-highlights-community-pushback-stalling-64-billion-in-data-center-development-nationwide/
I’m sympathetic to community concerns, because there are genuine issues mixed in with the green dogma. Data centers can have a substantial negative community impact, at least in the short term. They can drive up electricity and water bills (large amounts of water are required for cooling), and starve other industries of access to land and resources, industries which cannot match the spending power of data center operators.
But the part which really seems to upset greens is that the gargantuan energy demands of data centers are crushing their dreams of a renewable energy powered future.
For data center sustainability in Virginia, state regulation is a must
- Eric Bond
- May 19, 2025
Spreading out from Northern Virginia, data centers are being proposed in communities across the Chesapeake Bay region. They promise big bursts of local revenue, but they also consume huge amounts of energy and can sometimes negatively impact neighborhoods and natural areas. When data centers come knocking, what should local environmentalists do?
Given the inevitability of new development, perhaps the best that local advocates can do is push for greater data center sustainability. But regulation and transparency of this industry is sorely lacking in Virginia. This, along with data centers’ tremendous energy needs, raises the question: What does sustainability in this industry even mean?
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I know that leaders in my city care deeply about the environment. But officials ignored recommendations from the General Assembly’s data center report because, it would seem, the potential new tax revenue was just too big to pass up. This experience indicates that, before we can talk about data center sustainability, communities in Virginia need state lawmakers to set limits that restrict these industrial facilities to land that is appropriately zoned for such use.
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The reality is that this industry is highly dependent on fossil fuels. There is only so much area in Virginia that we can cover with solar panels, and there are only so many wind turbines that we can build. Energy consumption in Virginia is set to double in the next 15 years, mostly because of the proliferation of data centers. Consequently, this industry is a major obstacle to achieving our climate goals, despite the renewable energy claims of individual companies.
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Eric Bonds, PhD, is a sociology professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. The views expressed here are his own and not reflective of positions taken by UMW.
Views expressed by opinion columnists are not necessarily those of the Bay Journal.
Read more: https://www.bayjournal.com/opinion/forum/for-data-center-sustainability-in-virginia-state-regulation-is-a-must/article_053c830f-d4d4-44a1-a1bd-2c2b1659962c.html
Will Virginia pass up their opportunity to become the next Silicon Valley?
Solar power for data centers isn’t going to happen, the energy demands are too great, as is the requirement for reliable, dispatchable energy. If you owned a football field scale computer installation where equipment costs exceed $10,000 per square foot, the last thing you want is for all that capital investment to sit idle because the sun went down. Nor would you be keen on large, highly flammable lithium batteries being sited on the campus, next to all those expensive computers.
Virginia has a rich endowment of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, which is probably what initially drew the data centers, but the data center industry has outstripped local capacity. Virginia now imports around 37% of its electricity.
More nuclear power would solve the energy crisis without increasing emissions, though more nuclear might put pressure on water access. Governor Youngkin pushed for nuclear earlier in his term of office, but demand still appears to be outstripping supply.
There is an obvious way to defuse community tension, aside from building more infrastructure to alleviate pressure on electricity and water supplies.
My suggestion is build upon and expand such programmes. Instead of importing IT talent to run Virginia’s data centers, hire local.
If Big Tech companies hoping to expand in Virginia were to offer lots of education scholarships, so Virginia’s best and brightest could fully participate in Virginia’s data center AI revolution, it is pretty hard to organise a protest against the company which is paying for your kid’s education, and providing a path for your kids to enjoy a well paid and secure financial future.
It just may be they’re trying to build in the wrong corner (NoVa) of Virginia.
SE Virginia (Norfolk …) has the nuclear Navy, the veteran nuclear engineers, far from the D.C. swamp creatures.
The trouble with universities, their academic ‘research’ / indoctrination, part (XXX).
Source. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-knowledge-class-could-turn-violent-education-politics-elites-fea18e09
What excellent timing.
[Perhaps this here is one of Prof. Jukka Savolainen‘s students from his Sociology / Criminology courses?]
[Alleged] D.C. Assassin Elias Rodriguez would fit the bill:
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By their fruits ye shall know them. — Proverbs
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/who-suspect-killing-2-israeli-embassy-staffers
What about the right wing assassin who murdered 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue – actual worshippers just like the right winger who murdered 9 worshippers inside a black church in Charleston or the right winger who murdered 51 worshippers inside a mosque in new Zealand
The shooter in New Zealand went on a murder spree to force more gun control.
What ? he moved from Australia which had tighter gun control on semi automatics. His motive wasnt gun control, he had a manifesto – or sh*itposting of various white supremacist, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-government beliefs
If those law abiding Muslims in NZ had enjoyed a right to bear arms the NZ Mosque killer would have been gunned down within seconds of opening fire.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/26/former-new-zealand-pm-joins-global-censorship-push/
You can’t stop madmen from getting hold of guns, but you can allow law abiding people the means to defend themselves
Bad day … I apologize for going off-topic so early. [ And for not knowing enough about Pittsburgh – Charleston – New Zealand, all horrific, no doubt. ] Blocked mysteriously after that.
My only aim was to link to the universities’ role (in youth radicalisation) and to the academic (researchers’) defense of all that:
In essence, they say, just give us (even) more prestige – power – funds … in order to keep them passified! Seems like something from the Babylon Bee, but not.
Nearly ~ 500 comments overnight at wsj.com, nearly half of which point that out as ‘extortion’. And then over 2,000, in just a few hours, over revoking visas for (all) foreign students at Harvard.
Anyone who does something the left disagrees with, is by definition a right winger.
Just ask any socialist.
Not just “a right winger” but “extreme right-wing”.
The attached “joke” is 2 or 3 years old now, but seems ever more applicable as time passes.
NB : Authoritarians and totalitarians from both ends of the political spectrum lack what is known as … checks notes … “a sense of humour” (?) …
I think we can all agree that the use of violence to enforce one’s political or religious views is abhorrent.
It’s all swamp
Happen to start working at a Data Center less then a year ago. Can’t swing a stick without smacking into a dozen ex Navy nucs. While hiring heavily from all branches USN is certainly where the majority come from.
There’s only so many people you can convince to move into an area they don’t particularly want to live hence funding local people to go to college. Other issue there’s only so many locals you can convince to go to school and work locally. Also with fast growth comes big time growth in construction for all those who don’t want to spend time going to college. Quite the competition for employees going on.
Interesting! Thanks for writing that first paragraph “Can’t swing a stick without smacking into a dozen ex Navy nucs.”
My only in-depth exposure to the nuclear-navy-@Norfolk is from ca. 1990, but it left a deep impression. A couple decades later, whenever you’d hear some authority-figure (Georgia Tech engineering faculty, or their esteemed guests) say something definitive like:
‘America can’t build nuclear anymore‘,
one could reply with
‘What about the Nuclear (US) Navy?‘
And they’d be like,
‘Oh yeah, that …‘
Timing is everything: just heard a rumor that today (Friday 23rd) will be the EO signing to expedite the (commercial) Nuclear Power revival, and that it specifically mentions siting these on Federal Lands like military bases. So … feeling much better (lucky) about all this.
An irresponsible veto. Does Governor Youngkin realize how much renewable energy a large storage facility generates 🙂
On the other hand, as the bill was approved unanimously, the Senate can override the veto.
Nope, that bill is dead. They will try again with the next governor. See more below…
Storage is trying to raise the zombie of “renewable energy”. It should just be buried, but reviving wind and solar is their holy cause.
If VA had enough reliable energy, it would not need expensive storage. Natural gas IS stored energy. Coal IS stored energy.
A storage facility does not actually “generate” any electricity, it all comes from somewhere else.
And why would we expect that to be any different than asking a college class for their assignments on the subject ?
Here’s the latest take on our fine young cannibals er scholars:
— Professor of Sociology (Criminology specialty) in y’day’s WSJ.com
!Security First!
I just sat through a legislative presentation in Virginia where a PJM official explained the facts of life to the members, and the Democrats didn’t want to hear it. In response to the warning about demand exceeding supply and the quickly shrinking share of that supply which is dispatchable, the chair of the committee went immediately to batteries. We can fix all that with more storage, right? More solar and storage will work! The PJM official missed a very good teaching moment as he should have pointed out that storage batteries are DC not AC so they also enter the grid through inverters, just like solar panels. They will not solve the problem when the problem is the one that took down Spain and Portugal.
The battery bill that Youngkin vetoed does not mean more batteries will not be proposed and built. They will. It just means the State Corporation Commission, the regulator, will have full authority to rule on how much capacity is needed, what is the best technology, which projects are reasonable and prudent. The legislature was trying to dictate specific outcomes for a specific vendor/donor by overriding the regulators, dictating “public interest” declarations.
Re “…explained the facts of life to the members, and the[y] didn’t want to hear it”
You mean they/them.
Do data centers really consume water? I once did contract programming at Wolf Creek nuclear plant in Kansas. They used a man-made lake for their water instead of cooling towers. The water was recycled, net consumption was as close to zero as you can reasonably get. Why can’t data centers recycle their water?
Same deal with North Anna reactors and Lake Anna in Virginia. Excellent question/suggestion.
Yes. I have worked as a drainage engineer and looking at the local annual rainfall and knowing the size of the complete site you can often find the the total yearly rainfall on the site exceeds the usage. Same goes for dairy farms – cows drink a lot of water from troughs
Water recycling would require much more land than using utility water for cooling.
Unless the data centers simply let the water evaporate, it’s not consumed. (Let’s ignore leakage for the moment.)
When I drive my car, it consumes gasoline. When water is piped into a data center for cooling it can be pumped back into the water system, can’t it?
They can have roof and carpark storage of rainfall. Those are big roof areas!
Water is heavy. Storing water on roofs requires buildings be stronger and hence more expensive to build.
Why can’t they recycle water? Because depending on where they are located they either use direct evaporative cooling (giant swamp coolers) or use chiller systems which dump heat via cooling towers (evaporative cooling). Either way they end up going through a lot of water to keep all those units cool enough to do their job.
When you see cooling towers and lakes/storage tanks those are not there for recycling water they are water storage.
Many data centers use evaporative cooling, which consumes water.
The simplest solution is still to require Data Centers to provide for (generate) their Own Energy Requirements without burdening the grid to transport it from site A to site B
Why not require all factories and office buildings to provide their own energy?
This is by far the best use of AI to battle climate change. More people applying AI like this the better.
https://app.screencast.com/DFd1viHxsRjq7
I could care less whether Virginia gets more data centers. Virginia will certainly need more power with or without data centers. The fact that some in Virginia believe they need tons more storage is proof that wind and solar don’t work. Stop building them. Does it make sense that Virginia imports better than thirty percent of its power? I don’t know. The point is if these data centers need so much more power then they should be made to invest in new power generation. The type of generation that actually works. If they aren’t willing to share in the cost of providing more energy maybe they aren’t the kind of neighbors to attract to your community. Virginia needs to get busy building fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. You will need the new power whether you have data centers or not. It is that simple.
I suggest that you actually couldn’t care less.
I’ve been corrected for saying that also.
Whomever “corrected” you for that was wrong. Just think about what the phrase means.
“Whoever” is the subject of the clause “Whoever corrected you,” which in turn was the subject of the sentence.
You’re right, my mistake. Thanks.
“Virginia governor vetoes more energy storage despite data centers roaring for more power”
What a strange thing to write.
Energy storage does not make energy… it stores energy made by something else.
The writer should be asking more generation, not more storage.
I hope the next silicon valley is in America.
Sorry, didn’t read the whole article.
Doesn’t matter.
In a few months, Governor Youngkin will be replaced and Virginia Democrats will have the Trifecta.
They will immediately begin turning Virginia into California’s East Coast Chapter.
We will become the “Clean Energy” capital of the east coast and all those data centers will start to move elsewhere. I’ll be right there with them.
Already own the land in Free America with a well and a septic tank…just need to build a house on it.
Sounds idyllic, good luck with the move.
Sadly, based on over 40 years now observing and playing the political game in Virginia, I agree that is the mostly likely outcome. But some data centers can probably build (and will) enough behind the meter generation and the powers that be will wink-wink and look the other way when that turns out to be natgas. Only the utilities are blocked from that option by state law.
These same “Greens” have been fighting against building a third unit at North Anna. That’s what you need if you’re going to power data centers in Northern Virginia.
Approximately 70% of the world’s internet traffic already passes through Virginia.Servicing that must provide massive employment and revenue. Can’t see that changing much in the future