Data Center Impacts in Virginia

Data Centers are expanding across Virginia and they present serious impacts to our land and neighbors, water consumption, energy demand, carbon emissions, our electric bills, and our air quality and health. 

The Roanoke Group of of the Sierra Club, Virginia Chapter, fully supports the chapter's report, "Unconstrained Demand: Virginia's Data Center Expansion and Its Impacts." The Executive Summary from the report is provided below, and you can read the full Cumulative Impact Report on the Virginia Chapter's site.

Local Impact - Google Data Center

October, 2025

In December, 2024, after ten years Apex Clean Energy of Charlottesville had finally secured all permits, survived all legal challenges and with a few remaining site plan details to sort out with the county, was set to begin construction of Rocky Forge Wind in Botetourt County. But one key ingredient was missing, a buyer of the 79 MW production capacity. Google agreed to buy the power and in early February, 2025, work began. We celebrate the coming of Virginia’s first wind farm while facing the daunting challenges of the first data center in our area in Botetourt County.

As with most developments, scale is a major consideration. To what extent will the environment be impacted? The three major environmental impacts are: 

  • Extreme energy demand - Google will use wind power instead of fossil fuels, a positive consideration.
  • Occupancy of vast areas of land, with frequent incursion on farm land and neighborhoods – Google will locate in an industrial park designed for large industries, a positive consideration.
  • Extreme demand on fresh water resources for cooling – This raises grave concerns. Google will have to explain how the consumption of millions of gallons of water daily will not pose a serious threat to the area’s water resources. We are in drought in western Virginia now, but have seen much worse. We haven’t seen our worst drought, given the ever-increasing frequency and ferocity of extreme weather events due to rapid climate change. Caution is imperative. You can make electricity. You cannot make water.

Read more about data center impacts in the Virginia Chapter report Executive Summary copied below, with a link to the full report. The summary and report include 6 Recommendations for Immediate Policy Interventions to share with elected officials. 

 

Executive Summary of "Unconstrained Demand: Virginia's Data Center Expansion and Its Impacts." 

Virginia is at the epicenter of a growing crisis driven by the rapid expansion of data centers coupled with a lack of policy protections. The surging demand for computing power, fueled by artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, is placing unprecedented strain on the state’s energy grid, land, water resources, and health of local communities. This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the far-reaching scope and consequences of data center expansion, offers new data and outlines urgent state and local policy recommendations to safeguard Virginia’s future from a host of immediate and long-term challenges.

Impacts at a Glance

The rapid growth of data centers in Virginia has come with consequences that are largely unaddressed by state policy. With the world’s highest concentration of data centers, and facing a projected tripling of growth, Virginia cannot ignore the problem. The unchecked expansion of data centers has caused concern across many areas including: skyrocketing energy demand; rising consumer costs; severe water loss; environmental and health risks; land and community displacement; and, regulatory and policy failures.


IMPACTS TO LAND AND NEIGHBORHOODS

  • Virginia could be home to nearly 1,300 data centers in the coming years.
  • Over 390,000,000 square feet of data centers are proposed, built, or under construction.
  • Central Virginia is expecting 290+ data centers, rivaling Northern Virginia’s existing hubs.
  • In Fairfax County, data centers are increasingly encroaching on residential areas:
  • 55% are within 200 feet of homes.
  • 70% are within 500 feet of homes.

 

IMPACTS ON WATER

  • A single large data center can consume 5 million gallons of water per day, enough to supply 50,000 people, impacting local water sources and often operating without disclosing its consumption, highlighting the industry’s ongoing lack of transparency.
  • Loudoun County’s data centers alone used over 1 billion gallons of water in 2023.
  • Across Virginia, data centers consumed over 2.1 billion gallons of water in 2023.

 

DEMAND FOR ENERGY

  • More than half of all U.S. data center energy consumption occurs in Virginia.
  • If unconstrained growth continues, energy demand will be well over 60 GW of power for
    data centers, the equivalent to 68 massive coal plants.

 

IMPACTS ON CARBON EMISSIONS

  • Loudoun County’s carbon emissions are up over 50% attributed to data centers.
  • Two massive data center projects in Pittsylvania County are tapping into the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) for fracked gas power.
  • The proposed Balico Tech Campus plans to build a 3,500 MW fracked gas plant, nearly three times the size of any gas plant in Virginia today. 

 

IMPACTS ON ELECTRIC BILLS

  • Dominion Energy projects that residential electric bills will rise from an average of $142.77 today to $315.25 by 2039—primarily due to the data center sector’s growing energy needs.
  • Virginians are subsidizing the world’s internet, cloud services and artificial intelligence applications and paying for the infrastructure and energy that serve global corporations while reaping few local benefits.
  • Across PJM territory, 62% of all planned transmission projects before 2031 service data centers, costing $2.4 billion, a burden that will fall on ratepayers’ monthly electric bills.


IMPACTS ON AIR QUALITY & HEALTH

  • 8,910 generators have been approved for Virginia data centers, with nearly all of them being cheap, highly polluting Tier 2 models.
  • DEQ has permitted these generators to run up to 500 hours per year—equivalent to 1.4 hours of daily diesel pollution per generator.
     

REGULATORY AND POLICY FAILURES

Despite the industry’s rapid expansion, state and local policymakers have largely failed to enact adequate oversight. The lack of transparency, minimal environmental protections, and unchecked tax incentives have created a regulatory “race to the bottom” to attract data centers, while leaving Virginia’s families and ratepayers to shoulder the long-term costs without clear protections.


RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMMEDIATE POLICY INTERVENTIONS:

  1. Energy & Infrastructure Planning: Ensure data centers contribute to grid stability as well as fund necessary, clean, renewable energy infrastructure rather than shifting costs to ratepayers.
  2. Fair Taxation: End the Data Center Tax Exemption, or place conditions, to ensure Big Tech builds efficient, renewable powered facilities.
  3. Water Use Regulations: Impose limits on data center water consumption to protect local resources.
  4. Stronger Environmental Protections: Require sustainable energy such as on-site renewable generation requirements and stricter emissions controls on backup generators.
  5. Land Use Oversight: Establish state-level planning standards to prevent reckless expansion adjacent to residential areas and on agricultural land.
  6. Transparency: Mandate full disclosure of energy and water use, emissions data, and expansion plans to allow for informed public discourse and policy decisions.


CONCLUSION

Without decisive action, the unchecked expansion of data centers will exacerbate an emerging energy crisis, increase pollution and impose unbearable energy costs on residents. Policymakers should focus on tipping the scales towards environmental sustainability and public well-being instead of rubber-stamping data centers in the name of more revenue. This report serves as both a warning and a call to action—we must manage data center growth before it is too late.