On Saturday, Dec. 2, over 450 advocates banded together at Virginia Conservation Network’s 13 in-person Regional Watch Parties across the state or tuned in virtually to “preview” the critical environmental legislative action upcoming in the 2024 General Assembly.
Regional, State and National
PEC joins with partner organizations to promote thriving communities and healthy natural resources in the Shenandoah Valley, the central Piedmont, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground corridor and Northern Virginia counties.
Virginia Conservation Network’s Our Common Agenda: 2024 Policy Briefing Book
In January, the Virginia General Assembly will begin its regular session, this year held for 60 days. The Piedmont Environmental Council and the Coalition for Smarter Growth are proud to have co-authored eight of 45 briefing papers in Virginia Conservation Network’s newly released Our Common Agenda: 2024 Policy Briefing Book, which represents the policy agenda of more than 160 organizations across the state.
Our Common Agenda is your road map for state-based, pragmatic, policy solutions to address the environmental problems facing Virginia.
Existing and Proposed Data Centers – A Web Map
How many data centers currently exist in Virginia? How many proposals are in the works? These are very good questions. It’s also extremely difficult to provide an answer, given there is no publicly available dataset or state-level tracking of these facilities. In response, The Piedmont Environmental Council has pulled together an online web map showing existing data center facilities (that we are aware of), along with pending data center proposals we have found on various town and county websites, as well as through various news outlets.
Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition to kick off with Dec. 1 press conference
Nonprofit organizations, homeowners’ groups, and residents from all over Virginia have joined forces to form a coalition that is calling for industry-wide data center reform.
Transmission line update and community meeting invite
In September, I wrote to you about the explosive growth of Virginia’s data center industry and one of the side effects: a major push for new transmission lines.
Help choose our photo contest winners
Here are the 2023 PEC Photo Contest finalists. Take a look and vote for your favorites now!
Putting the Pieces Together on Digital Gateway
Since 2021, PEC has been supporting our partners’ heroic efforts to stop the largest data center campus in the world from being built on rural land next to Manassas National Battlefield Park, along Pageland Lane in Prince William County, Virginia.
The proposal, dubbed “Digital Gateway,” is massive and is projected to require around 3 gigawatts (GW) of energy. For context, that’s equivalent to the power used by 750,000 homes – roughly 5 times the number of households currently in Prince William County!
PEC Presentation on Energy Infrastructure and Data Centers (Upperville)
On Oct. 23, The Piedmont Environmental Council hosted a community meeting in Upperville, Va. on data centers and associated energy infrastructure.
2024 General Assembly: Building Bipartisan Support for Conservation
Updates on the conversations taking place in Richmond and a few of the ways PEC is working to support conservation efforts statewide.
Data Centers, Surging Power Demand Take Center Stage
The size, scale, and speed at which applications for data center projects are coming in and being approved is astounding.
Just this month, massive proposals moved forward in Culpeper, Louisa, and King George counties, with more being reviewed in Caroline and Stafford counties. Prince William, Loudoun, Fairfax, and Fauquier counties all have multiple active proposals for hyperscale data centers, which can demand hundreds of megawatts of power per campus. As an example, the data center campus just approved in King George County could total more than 1,200 MW alone.