Every four years Virginia Energy develops a comprehensive Virginia Energy Plan. Governor Glenn Youngkin’s vision for the 2022 Plan is to develop a data-driven roadmap that will provide energy policy recommendations that aim to balance the current and future needs of all Virginians, environmental goals, economic competitiveness, consumer choice and technology innovation. To give your input for the 2022 Virginia Energy Plan, interested individuals and organizations can provide comments in the following ways:
- Take the Stakeholder Survey
- Submit public comments via Virginia Town Hall’s 2022 Virginia Energy Plan forum.
- Email comments to: energyplan@energy.virginia.gov
In 2020, electricity sales in Virginia were 115,585 Gigawatt hours with a total summer capacity of 22 gigawatts for the electric utilities. The electricity used in Virginia in 2020 was 30% more than the power used in 2010. Most electricity use sectors in Virginia are not and have not been growing, nor is their electric demand. Commercial and industrial demand for electricity in Virginia have both been falling for several years, and the University of Virginia expects this trend to continue for some time. Residential electricity sales are growing very slowly due to slower population growth and improved energy efficiency in homes.
The one growing sector of electricity demand in Virginia is data centers, and, wow, is that growing. In 2018 power demand for data centers was just over 1 gigawatt of power, by 2022 that had reached 2 gigawatt of power and is projected to reach 3 gigawatts by 2025 with projects already under way. The current power usage by data centers is equal to the power usage of 1.5 million houses which is almost half of all Virginia households. Virginia is the data center capital of the nation (and the world) resulting in electricity use growing faster here than other states.
According to the University of Virginia Energy Transformation Initiative, “Electricity demand in Virginia can be expected to grow fairly rapidly between now and 2035. It will likely continue to grow even more quickly between 2035 and 2050 as the state accelerates its efforts to eliminate carbon emissions from the economy. Most of the shorter-term growth comes from increased sales to data centers in Virginia. In the longer-run, electric vehicles will become an increasingly important contributor to growth in electricity sales.”
In their forecasts, the University of Virginia’s mid-range estimate for electricity demand to increase 30% (32,800 Gigawatt hours, GWh) by 2035. This increase does not include any increased electric vehicle sales but rather is entirely due to increased power use by data centers. This level of energy demand requires the building of more electrical generation and transmission within the Commonwealth just to supply the additional power to data centers. The building of new power generation plants cost more per kilowatt hour than the power produced by the legacy generation we have and will result in the electric bills increasing for all Virginians. Ironically, data centers pay less per kilowatt hour than residential users.
A larger grid requires more transmission, more generation and storage to ensure reliability from renewable sources. Data centers require power 24/7 even when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine, requiring greater and greater amounts of backup power supply and storage. Along with additional power generation Virginia will need additional transmission lines crossing northern Virginia ruining views and neighborhoods.
Zoning and land use have always been left up to the counties. It is clear that there is no limit to the desirability of data centers to county supervisors and landowner. The counties have been blinded by the windfall profits to the landowners and the prospect of increased tax revenue. They are proposing to more than double the number of data centers and this massive change in use will bring great wealth to the landowners- land that is worth $25,000-$50,000 would magically be worth up to $1,000,000 an acre to be used for data centers, but these windfall profits come at the cost of degradation of our land and water resources and increased power and water costs for all Virginians.
Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project will have 176 wind turbines that are set to be fully operational in late 2026 and produce up to 14.7 megawatts of power apiece, producing in total up to 2.6 Gigawatts of power. Earlier this year, Sarah Vogelsong in the Virginia Mercury News reported: “The project is both a key component of Dominion’s plans to decarbonize its fleet by midcentury in line with the Virginia Clean Economy Act and, with an estimated price tag of $9.65 billion, the most expensive endeavor the utility has undertaken to date. According to the SCC the average residential customer, defined as someone who uses 1,000 kilowatts of power every month, would see their monthly bill initially rise by $14.21 by the time the project enters operation in2027.”
Though this project was intended as a key component in the plans to decarbonize our grid we can use the costs to look at what data centers cost us. If we use the SCC estimate of the monthly increase in electrical bills, then 3 gigawatt of data centers will cost the average Virginian residential customer an additional $16.40 per month in additional electrical costs on top of the costs we will have to pay to decarbonize our grid under the Virginia Clean Economy Act. More data centers more cost for all Virginians.
Data Centers need to be permitted by Virginia Energy because they impact the cost and reliability of the Virginia electric grid. Without state permitting the counties (most notably Loudoun and Prince William) have the ability to derail any energy plan for the Commonwealth. Virginia Energy needs to develop a plan for the optimal number of data centers as part of their comprehensive Virginia Energy Plan and enforce it.
No comments:
Post a Comment