PEC tracks data centers, energy and land use in Virginia

The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) reports on 2024–2025 land use, energy infrastructure, data center, and conservation actions across nine Virginia counties.

• Regional actions and plans: Multiple counties (Albemarle, Culpeper, Fauquier, Greene, Loudoun, Remington, Culpeper Town) are updating or adopting Comprehensive Plans, zoning amendments, and ordinances that affect data centers, transmission lines, substations, reservoirs, agritourism, and transportation projects, with PEC providing input, monitoring, and public engagement support.
• Energy, data centers, and environmental safeguards: Local governments have taken steps such as conditional use permits for data centers outside incentive zones, denial or withdrawal of substation and battery storage projects, scrutiny of new gas turbine onsite generation, opposition to major transmission and road expansions, and legal and public-hearing challenges to PFAS-contaminated biosolids and large mixed-use developments with extensive data center acreage, while PEC coordinates community responses and advocates to avoid, minimize, and mitigate adverse impacts on energy use, water, land, and natural resources.