Earning the Wrath of the People

I usually stay out of politics on these pages, but it appears that Tuesday’s primary in Prince William County was a referendum on unlimited growth and expansion of Data Centers in Western Prince William County and data centers appear to have lost. The lure of local investment, tax receipts, and locals jobs had ensured millions upon millions of square feet of data center proposals got the green light, they overplayed their hand.  A few data centers or a couple of dozen in the industrial overlay district are fine. No one worries about a single grasshopper,  we fear the plague of locust that covers the face of the ground and devours every tree that is growing in the fields. (Exodus)

The  scale and location of the newer data center projects created a wave of dedicated opposition. The PW Digital Gateway currently is applying for rezoning on 1,600 acres (of the 2,200 acres in the Comprehensive Plan Amendment) to build 28 to 34 data centers of up to 110 feet in height in the formerly protected rural crescent just north of Manassas National Battlefield Park. This area is the crucial watershed for the Occoquan Reservoir which supplies eastern Prince William County and a significant portion of Fairfax County. The environmental mitigations that were imposed by the Planning Department were removed by motion of Supervisor Angry around dawn after the all-night hearing for the Comprehensive Plan Amendment. The plan was audacious in its scope and any environmental mitigation were to be left up to the data center developers discretion- Stripping the community of any hope of a limited development.  A watershed impact study requested by Fairfax Water was not carried out nor funded.

In addition, the county's new comprehensive plan, eliminated the rural crescent where development had been limited to one home per 10 acres and extensions of the public sewer lines were largely prohibited. While this was going on, Loudoun County was building data centers along Route 50 adjacent to residential communities and all could see and hear what the future had to hold for Prince William. The population became aware of aesthetics and how a data center might impact its surroundings and views from homes looking at windowless facades right outside their windows, office park landscaping where woodlands once stood. This in addition to concerns about environmental issues such as noise, power usage, water usage, and emissions.

Near the end of July last summer, Dominion Energy informed data center companies and Loudoun County that power for some new data center facilities in Eastern Loudoun County would be delayed until 2026 due to inadequate transmission infrastructure. In 2022 Northern Virginia added 772 Megawatts (MW) of data centers. The grid in Northern Virginia has not kept pace with the massive data center growth in the region.  There are expected to be 965 MW of additional data centers coming online in 2023. This will bring the total northern Virginia regional load to more than 3,000 megawatts.

To give you some idea of what 3,000 megawatts means: Dominion Energy has four nuclear reactors at two sites. The two Hog Island in Surry County reactors can generate a total of 1,638 megawatts. Two nuclear reactors in Louisa County near Lake Anna can generate a total of 1,863 megawatts. Those four reactors have historically generated 30% of Virginia’s power. The total nuclear power is about 16% larger than the current power use by data centers, but Cushman and Wakefield estimate the demand for power from datacenters will more than surpass that total by 2024.

Dominion Energy’s latest IRP includes developing a demand response program like they have in California. In such a program Dominion would provide financial incentives for data centers to reduce demand on the grid by shifting to on-site generation. That means that Dominion would pay data centers to step off the grid and turn on their diesel run micro-grid. This is one of the dirtiest forms of power generation.  They are building these data centers next to schools and residences. Courtesy of the Canadian wildfires we have a glimpse of  what that will do to our air quality- days when it is too hazardous to go outside. Demand response programs are intended to manage the load and keep the grid operating when there is not enough power. Yet, the mismatch in power generation profile and demand profile is caused by data centers.

The growth in data center power demand is ensuring that there is simply no path for Virginia to successfully meet the requirements and timeline of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). The energy needs of the Commonwealth, its businesses and its families are changing – and growing at a breath taking rate. Virginia is already the data center capital of the world and the industry is exploding along with the demand of 24 hours a day 7 days a week power needed to run them.

Tell me why would the data center developers and operators push the populace until they angered so many. Data center companies and their developers used non-disclosure agreements and subsidiaries to hide their involvement in projects, flying under the radar until the project was unveiled full cloth and on short notice.  The community felt that there was no opportunity to influence the development. As a matter of fact, the data center companies pushed to have Supervisors eliminate the mitigations (thank you Supervisor Angry), raise height limits, wave environmental assessments, they pushed to have the buildings taller and bigger, they pushed for a four lane road and refused to proffer all the pretty promises made to the community. They pushed and took until they made people furious.  

It is counter productive to their goals to have worked against the community and made them their enemy rather than court the community as their partner. When Barack Obama became president in 2009, Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. During a meeting with Republicans, President Obama reminded them “elections have consequences and I won.” So, we’ll see what it means in Prince William that Ann Wheeler richly funded by data centers and developers was defeated by Deshundra Jefferson funded by the people. There is still plenty of time left in their terms for the current Board of Supervisors to do to mischief and permanently damage the watershed.