Virginia Data Center News

Dec 2, 2025 · RMI

The Five Types of Electro-Industrial States

Rocky Mountain Institute presents a typology classifying US states into five electro-industrial archetypes.

Main announcement/action: RMI authors classify states into five archetypes — Momentum Hubs (Arizona, California), Fast‑Track Builders (Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Ohio, Idaho), Policy Champions (New York, Michigan, Virginia, Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania), Open‑Door Starters (Vermont, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Iowa), and Early‑Stage Starters (Missouri, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Maine, Alabama, Louisiana, Indiana, West Virginia, Montana, Arkansas). The typology is based on policy reliability, regulatory ease, economic capacity, physical infrastructure (power and interconnection), and market momentum.
Background and details: The analysis highlights that market momentum and policy reliability should operate in tandem; low regulatory burdens accelerate short-term investment but may strain local housing and infrastructure without accompanying policy ambition. The authors reference the report GREASE Lightning as a policy playbook for designing investment-led, state-driven electro-industrial strategies.

Dec 1, 2025 · Uplight

How Data Centers Can Transform From Grid Stressors Into Energy Assets

Uplight and See Change Institute published research exploring data center interest in load flexibility and virtual power plant participation.

Main announcement/action: Uplight partnered with See Change Institute and interviewed 12 energy decision-makers across data center types and regions to assess familiarity with demand response (DR) and virtual power plant (VPP) programs; the report highlights that electricity demand from traditional, AI data centers, and chip foundries is projected to rise from 130 TWh in 2023 to 307 TWh by 2030 and that hyperscalers are expected to account for ~70% of data center growth by 2030.
Background and details: The research documents location-specific strain (e.g., data centers consuming ~20% of a utility’s sales in Loudoun County, VA and ~60% of a utility’s energy in Santa Clara, CA), finds varying willingness to participate in load-flex programs (limited mainly to non-peak times or relying on backups), and presents five utility engagement strategies (build relationships early, tailor approaches, lead with education/benefits, stay flexible amid regulatory changes, design solutions for 24/7 operational realities).

Nov 24, 2025

The AI infrastructure of the future

Crusoe has announced it is building modular AI data centers powered by stranded and renewable energy, deploying mobile/modular units to capture flare gas and local renewables and accelerating time to market.

Main announcement and project details: Crusoe is deploying mobile and modular data centers that capture on-site flare gas and use local renewables; its Stargate project in Abilene, Texas is sized at 1.2 gigawatts initial capacity with full build-out to occur over 24 months (completion targeted by mid-2026). The company also installed a 350-megawatt gas plant on-site to provide firm power, delivered a 100‑MW RFP project in 11 months (committed 12 months), and reports ~5,800 workers on-site daily in Abilene; Crusoe operates factories in Denver and Tulsa, plans to hire over 1,000 people in Tulsa, and is standing up capacity in Canada.
Background, technical and energy specifics: Crusoe adopts an energy-first approach, targeting stranded sources such as oil-field flare gas, curtailed wind in West Texas (driven by production tax credit-led buildouts), and potential low-cost geothermal/hydropower in Iceland; it emphasizes modular off-site manufacturing for electrical/mechanical/plumbing systems to cut time to market and designs data centers as a data-center-scale computer to support high-density GPUs (racks currently ~140 kW, scaling toward 600 kW–1 MW).

Nov 19, 2025

How Data Centers Can Support Energy Resiliency While Managing AI Demand - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

Schneider Electric presents an analysis of AI-driven data center energy challenges and proposed solutions.

Main announcement/action: The report outlines that data centers currently consume ~4.4% of U.S. electricity, projected to rise to as much as 12% by 2028, with interconnection queues for new projects stretching to seven years and Dominion Energy projecting 5.5% annual demand growth in Northern Virginia (doubling by 2039) — requiring billions of dollars in infrastructure investment to accommodate AI-driven load growth.
Background and technical details: The piece lists concrete mitigation options — DCIM, microgrids, liquid cooling, high-efficiency power distribution, small modular reactors/advanced fuel cells — and quantifies benefits such as digital substations improving grid capacity by 10%–30%, liquid cooling up to 3,000× more efficient than air cooling, and that demand response could reduce U.S. peak demand by up to 20%, while noting incompatible DR program rules, long permitting/interconnection timelines, and slow renewable deployment as key barriers.

Nov 14, 2025

Partnering to build the AI-ready infrastructure North America needs

Schneider Electric presents solutions to build AI-ready, energy-efficient infrastructure for North American data centers.

Main announcement/action: Schneider Electric positions itself as a leading energy technology provider offering efficiency, digitalization, and cooling solutions (including its investment in Motivair liquid cooling) and partnerships (with AVEVA, Nvidia, and others) to help data centers manage rapid electricity demand growth; the company highlights available AI reference designs (publicly available) and analytics tools to optimize operations.
Background and details: The article cites an Accenture forecast that data centers could consume >7% of U.S. electricity by 2028 and 16–23% by 2033, notes multi-year grid connection wait times (some 4+ years), references rack densities of 600KW–1MW per rack, and cites Compass Data Centers using Schneider+AVEVA analytics achieving “40% reduction in on-site maintenance interventions” and “20% lower operational costs”; it emphasizes rapid deployment via digitalization and scalable designs rather than waiting for new generation/transmission.

Nov 13, 2025

State subsidies for data centers are often concealed

Good Jobs First released a report warning most states conceal which companies benefit from data center incentives.

Main announcement: The report finds 36 states provide subsidies tailored to data centers but only 11 disclose recipient companies; it focuses on sales and use tax exemptions (excluding property tax abatements and discounted utility rates), warns Virginia forgoes nearly $1 billion annually in tax revenue without revealing recipients, and flags Louisiana for not disclosing how much it is giving Meta to build the world’s largest data center.
Background and detail: Deals often use NDAs, code names, and subsidiaries that obscure beneficiaries; the study excludes other common incentives such as property tax abatements and discounted utility rates; Good Jobs First urges states to scale back or eliminate subsidies and says full transparency is the minimum needed for responsible economic development spending, noting expected federal funding cuts will pressure state budgets.

Nov 10, 2025

Building the Future: Inside DataBank’s Red Oak Campus Construction

DataBank has announced construction of its 292-acre Red Oak campus 21 miles south of downtown Dallas, delivering eight data centers and 3.4 million gross square feet of AI-ready capacity.

Main details: The campus will deliver eight data centers (each two-story building: 425,000 gross sq ft, including 200,000 sq ft of data center space). Phase 1 expands DataBank’s Dallas presence to 12 data centers; construction is underway and is powered by a 400MW Oncor substation delivering up to 240MW of critical IT power in Phase 1 and scaling to 480MW at full buildout. Initial Ready for Service is targeted for Q2 2026.
Background and additional details: This is DataBank’s third major campus announcement in the past year (following acquisitions in Atlanta and Northern Virginia); when all three sites are fully developed they will add >450 acres, 5.8 million sq ft of data center space, and 792MW of power to DataBank’s portfolio. Construction metrics provided include 19,008 power whips, >1,000,000 feet of Sealtite conduit (198 miles), 990 miles of copper wire, 1,760,000 feet of 864-count fiber (333 miles), and individual fiber strands that would wrap the Earth 11.5 times.

Nov 10, 2025

Salute Military Story: Frederick “Fritz” Little

Fritz Little, retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and Director of Program Delivery at Salute, describes his transition from military service and USAID into a leadership role at a large data center campus in Northern Virginia.

Main announcement: Fritz Little joined as Director of Program Delivery at a large data center campus in Northern Virginia after taking early retirement from USAID earlier this year following budget cuts; his transition was initiated after attending a veteran-focused job fair run by iMasons Armed Forces Groups and through rapid outreach and mentorship from Lee Kirby. He reports joining the data center community as of July.
Background and details: Little enlisted at 17 and served 35 years in the Army (Military Police, Special Operations Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations), deployed to Tajikistan (Dushanbe, 2001), Afghanistan, and Iraq, and finished as Civil Affairs Branch Chief at US Special Operations Command; he later worked at USAID in humanitarian assistance and disaster response prior to early retirement.

Nov 7, 2025 · RMI

Rewiring Utility Planning for the Age of Rapid Load Growth

RMI offers ways to accelerate utility planning and procurement to keep pace with rapid large-load growth and avoid costly over- or under-building of grid capacity. Contact: Charles Cannon (ccannon@rmi.org); attend RMI staff at the upcoming National Association of Regulatory Commissioners Conference in Seattle.

Main announcement/action: RMI recommends faster, adaptive utility planning and procurement processes to address rapidly rising load forecasts (Engage & Act shows aggregate 2035 demand forecasts rose >20% from Dec 2020 to Jun 2025). Key specifics include Georgia Power’s 2030 demand rising by 7 GW between 2022 and 2025 IRPs, utilities receiving hundreds of megawatts of load requests quarterly, and the IRP update cadence averaging 2.83 years. RMI cites a Virginia utility example estimating ~$2 billion in one-time costs from early overbuilding and a similar ~$2 billion potential loss in Virginia GDP from underbuilding.
Background and other details: RMI documents concrete planning frictions and proposed fixes: 2 years typical lead time to build fastest utility-scale resources; examples of interim updates include Georgia Power (quarterly large-load updates) and NV Energy (5 IRP amendments in 3 years); proposed tools include stochastic planning, more frequent interim procurements, tariff-based large load options (e.g., Nevada’s Clean Transition Tariff), and alternative modeling approaches explored by Telos Energy and GridLab.

Nov 7, 2025 · RMI

Large Energy Users Want Power. Here’s How to Protect Other Ratepayers from the Costs.

RMI (Perez, Wang, Shwisberg) published a review of 65 state-level large load tariffs and identified five common safeguard provisions intended to protect other ratepayers from cost shifting.

Main announcement/action: RMI authors analyzed 65 state-level tariffs using data from Halcyon’s Large Load Tariff Tracker and identified five safeguard provisions—Minimum Contract Term, Minimum Monthly Billing Demand, Collateral Requirements, Exit Fees, and Capacity Reassignment—with concrete examples such as Kentucky Power’s 20-year minimum contract for new loads ≥150 MW and 22 of 65 tariffs specifying Load Ramp Periods (usually 4–5 years).
Background and details: The review found 37 of 65 tariffs include collateral requirements (common range 12–24× the customer’s largest monthly bill or dollar-per-MW approaches), Dominion Energy’s GS-5 requires $1.5 million collateral per MW (reducible up to 70% for strong credit), 31 tariffs include exit fees, and 12 include capacity reassignment; the data source and linked tariff filings are provided for verification.

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