The next election will determine the path of Virginia’s energy future — a future clouded by data center power demands. Virginia hosts the largest data center market in the world and is home to 35% (almost 150) of all known hyperscale data centers worldwide (here). Last year, despite a legal obligation to provide power to all comers, Dominion admitted it could not meet growing data center energy demands (here), a point industry executives reiterated last week (here). The issue isn’t just a lack of needed power, it is also an issue of grid overload. As reported by David Wojick at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, there is a stampede of low-wattage producing renewable providers seeking access to the grid, but their production sites are where land is cheap and have no relation to where needs are greatest, thus causing stress to the grid (here) requiring expensive grid upgrades that can’t be done quickly or in time to meet Virginia’s needs in just a few years.
Thomas Jefferson Institute