Virginia's 2024 legislative session ended last month without taking steps to avert the energy crisis that is upon us.
“Crisis” is not too strong a word to describe the unchecked proliferation of power-hungry data centers in Northern Virginia. around the state. Virginia's electric utilities do not have the energy or transmission capacity to handle significant increases in energy consumption. Dominion Energy predicts that CO2 will double and new fossil fuels will increase. Drinking water sources are at risk.
The governor is unfazed. Lawmakers plan to consider the issue.
According to the data Collected by regional power transmission operator PJM, half of the upcoming surge will occur in parts of Virginia served by Dominion Energy.among them 2023 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) said Dominion would meet higher demand by increasing its use of expensive and highly polluting fossil fuels and building new methane gas-fired power plants. Dominion acknowledged that this will drive up carbon emissions as Virginia's Clean Economy Act requires utilities to build renewable energy and reduce carbon.
PJM predicts similarly huge data center growth in the areas served by Virginia electric cooperatives, particularly Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC). The cooperative is exempt from most VCEA requirements, and NOVEC buys most of its electricity from his PJM's fossil fuel-rich wholesale market.Novec's latest work annual report cites a 12% annual increase in load, almost entirely due to data centers, but doesn't mention the increased carbon footprint that comes with that increase.
Undeterred by these alarming statistics, the General Assembly accelerated growth. new round of tax cuts In 2023, while defeating all conditions that could slow the onslaught.That's it this year turned away Any legislation that imposes restrictions on an industry or protects ordinary consumers from unavoidable cost increases.
At the same time, lawmakers rejected a number of bills that would have allowed more renewable energy development in Virginia and given customers more security over their power supply. Together, these bills brought thousands of megawatts of new solar projects online, curbed demand growth through energy efficiency improvements, and prevented the rise in carbon pollution that now seems inevitable. It should be.
Lawmakers gave the green light to Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power's ability to invest customer funds in the initial development of two nuclear reactors of up to 500 megawatts (MW), one for each utility.
This is not a fix. It's like having a heart attack today and scheduling knee surgery for next year.
Some of the famous ones include: highly doubtful There is no doubt that a surge in data center development is occurring now as to whether small modular reactors (SMRs) will be viable in the coming decades.Dominion says Virginia's expected nuclear renaissance will be too little, too late to meet data center demand 933MW increase Even in 2023 alone. It is expected to reach nearly 20,000 MW by 2034, the year Dominion's IRP is shown to be powering the company's first small nuclear reactor.
In rejecting any serious measures to address data center demand, General Assembly leaders said they wanted to wait for a decision. study The investigation is being conducted this year by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC).What is a general meeting? did not do it Development of the new data center has been postponed until the investigation is complete. It will take another year for lawmakers to consider legislation that would address land use, power and water issues around data centers and facilitate the deployment of renewable energy.
Inaction can have deadly consequences. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has proposed allowing a Northern Virginia data center to violate air quality permits by running more than 4,000 highly polluting diesel generators during periods of grid stress. That was just one year ago. It doesn't take much imagination to imagine the public health disaster we would have suffered had 4,000 diesel generators been activated last summer. Smoke from wildfires in Canada It was already making Virginia's air quality dangerous.
Building more data centers in Virginia requires better pollution controls
DEQ withdrew the proposal after extensive discussion public protestBut the idea is probably still percolating through the agency and could resurface in the form of: Emergency demand response measures. Even if the generators can't support the power grid, more data centers equipped with diesel generators will worsen air quality with every power outage and equipment test.
as I claimed at that time, the diesel generator debacle could have been avoided in the first place if the data center had been equipped with renewable energy microgrids and battery storage. DEQ's decision not to require battery storage as a first line of defense against power outages deprived Dominion of a demand response option that would have been much cleaner and more convenient than diesel generators.
One bill that failed in the General Assembly this year would have prohibited data centers receiving state tax subsidies from using backup diesel generators and required them to improve energy efficiency. A missed opportunity means the problem could get even worse next year.
But the governor could still avert a crisis by imposing a moratorium on data center development while the JLARC investigation proceeds. He issued an executive order directing the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) not to enter into any memorandum of understanding (MOU) with any data center operator until the JLARC investigation is complete and lawmakers have an opportunity to act on it. This can be achieved through. These MOUs are a requirement for data center operators to take advantage of Virginia's generous tax credits. Without tax subsidies, most data center developers would likely choose not to pursue development here.
This isn't a new idea.Last spring, we advocated data center reform. asked VEDP This is to include strict efficiency and location requirements in the MOU signed with Amazon Web Services. They could never get an answer.
But in Georgia, lawmakers Republican-led bill just passed The state's data center tax subsidies will be suspended for two years pending the results of a study of power grid capacity. Lawmakers expressed concerns about Georgia Power's ability to power all the data centers it wants to bring into the state.and as Republican Sen. Jon Albers. I got it.“The reality is these don't create many jobs. They build big buildings, but they don't create jobs.”
Interestingly, Georgia's tax subsidies are modeled after those implemented by Virginia in 2010, which disproportionately encouraged data center growth. Isn't it interesting that Georgia's lawmakers quickly learned a lesson that Virginia's leaders refuse to even acknowledge?
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