WHRO
(August 21, 2025)
Dominion Energy customers in Virginia have seen incremental increases in their energy bills in recent years, hikes which the utility says helps pay for investments in transmission. Now Dominion, which submitted its biennial rate review to the State Corporation Commission earlier this year, is proposing its largest rate hike in more than three decades - increases that environmental groups argue are paying for power-hungry data centers.
The SCC will hold a public hearing on Dominion’s plans on Sept. 2 in Richmond, where members of the public can share their comments. The hearing is at noon in the SCC’s second-floor courtroom at 1300 E. Main St. People can also submit written public comments through Aug. 26 on the SCC website, https://www.scc.virginia.gov/case-information/submit-public-comments/
Volts (Podcast)
(August 20, 2025)
Movement veterans Bill McKibben and Jamie Henn have been thinking about where climate activism goes from here. They argue for a new focus on celebrating and accelerating the miraculous global boom in solar power. We get into what it looks like to fight for building stuff, how to win the online information war for clean energy, and why the sun offers not just cheaper power, but a form of liberation.
Bloomberg
(August 20, 2025)
Chris Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council, has been dealing with land use and infrastructure decision-making in Virginia for 30 years. With the data center explosion, he said, “the tech industry is trying to break all the rules.”
This clip features Piedmont Environmental Council's president, Chris Miller.
Fauquier Times
(August 20, 2025)
The developers of Gigaland, a controversial data center complex requesting approval for a 200-acre site north of Remington, have asked the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors to postpone consideration of the project while they try to come up with a better plan. In a letter emailed to the board, Art Lickunas, co-developer of the ambitious project, asked that the board hold off on an expected vote on Sept. 11, perhaps for several months.
Heatmap
(August 19, 2025)
President Donald Trump campaigned last year on slashing electricity rates by as much as half. His administration is now bracing for political blowback from the opposite effect — surging electricity rates as data centers drive up demand for an already limited supply, all while Congress and federal agencies curb development of the fastest-to-deploy solar and wind facilities.
Canary Media
(August 19, 2025)
As EV tourism takes hold in rural towns, historic Middleburg looks to attract eco-minded visitors with a high-speed electric-vehicle charger. Officials there installed a fast charger nearly 18 months ago to serve EV drivers in the wealthy, bucolic region just 45 miles west of Washington, D.C.
Prince William Times
(August 18, 2025)
Supervisors also signal intent to join data center companies in likely appeal. In a court filing last Friday, lawyers representing the board of supervisors asked Judge Kimberly Irving to stay her ruling, which, if granted, would allow the 1,700 acres in question to remain zoned for data centers until any potential appeals have been exhausted.
The Economist
(August 18, 2025)
If artificial-intelligence models have a hometown, it is probably Ashburn, northern Virginia. Attentive window-seaters flying into Dulles airport might notice a clutch of white-roofed boxes jutting out next to rows of suburban culs-de-sac. Those data centres are part of a cluster—the world’s biggest—which last year guzzled more than a quarter of the power produced by Virginia’s main electrical utility.
Virginia Mercury
(August 18, 2025)
The Virginia Department of Energy has officially gotten word that funding for the Solar for All program — which aimed to help lower- and moderate-income households build solar panels on their roofs — has been rescinded by the federal government. Virginia had been awarded $156 million that would have aided an estimated 15,000 households install rooftop solar or buy into community solar projects.
Public Notice
(August 15, 2025)
"People do not understand these days how powerful the Clean Air Act of 1972 is. The Clean Air Act didn't just say, ‘X, Y and Z are dangerous pollutants, so let's cut those down.’ What it says is every few years the EPA needs to do the science and determine whether there are new pollutants. If they discover new pollutants, they regulate them. It's extremely open-ended. It basically says anything you discover in the air that's dangerous, the EPA has to regulate it. This is the reason that environmental progress has continued, because of the power of these laws."
PV Magazine
(August 14, 2025)
Dominion Energy Virginia filed its proposed net metering successor program, NEM 2.0, which uses net billing with 30-minute intervals and compensates excess generation based on bid prices for distributed solar power purchase agreements. Upcoming proceedings will determine the program's future terms and how owners of new solar installations will be paid.
Quartz
(August 14, 2025)
Americans' electricity bills are 30% higher than they were five years ago thanks to data centers America's data centers could drain as much as 12% of the nation's electricity in the next three years.
News Break
(August 20, 2025)
Assateague Island, stretching along the Atlantic coastline, is home to the Chincoteague ponies—descendants of Spanish horses that survived shipwrecks centuries ago. Known for their sturdy physique and unique adaptations to the coastal environment, these horses draw visitors year-round to experience their wild majesty along the island’s sandy shores and lush meadows.
Information Charlottesville
(August 20, 2025)
In recent years, Charlottesville City Council has increased capital funding for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority to allow for the purchase of more property and to help finance renovations and new construction.
29 News
(August 20, 2025)
An environmental group in Virginia is raising awareness about the impacts of data center growth, including how it may affect your energy bills. The Piedmont Environmental Group has launched the “Virginians for a Smarter Digital Future Campaign,” in response to the proliferation of these centers across the commonwealth.
This clip features coverage of the launch of Virginians for a Smarter Digital Future Campaign and quotes PEC's president, Chris Miller.
Loudoun Times-Mirror
(August 15, 2025)
Months after plans for a new transmission line in Western Loudoun were scrapped, a different project is in the works. At a public meeting in Lovettsville, utility company FirstEnergy laid out its plan to tear down and rebuild existing infrastructure in Western Loudoun, adding a new line to carry more energy. The line being replaced runs through Loudoun, Frederick and Clarke counties in Virginia and Jefferson County in West Virginia.
This clip mentions Tia Earman, the Piedmont Environmental Council’s senior land use field representative for Loudoun and Clarke counties
Fauquier Times
(August 20, 2025)
Ron Meyer Associates may be the face of the application, but it's a project of SDC Capital Partners, a New-York-based investment firm that specializes in digital infrastructure. The company also plans three data centers in Loudoun County and one in Prince William County. The Remington Innovation Center project is the company’s first foray into Fauquier County. With three 300-megawatt substations, the complex will pull as much energy as 720,000 homes.
Fauquier Times
(August 19, 2025)
“The idea was to highlight Virginia beef in general and allow producers to highlight the fact that their beef is born, raised, fed, processed in the commonwealth,” said Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, “and have a means to verify that for the consumer so that they could know exactly where their beef is coming from.”
Fauquier Times
(August 16, 2025)
In the end, about 40 gave their views, and they were evenly divided between those in favor and those against. More speakers had been expected as both the data center developer and opponents sent emails in the past week calling for supporters to attend.
Fauquier Times
(August 15, 2025)
While local Habitat for Humanity homes sell at market rates, their buyers — Fauquier County residents who make between 30% and 80% of the Washington Metropolitan Area’s median income — receive down payment assistance and subsidized interest rates. All of which may change as funding streams, including the USDA’s 502 program, have been earmarked for cuts from the 2026 fiscal year budget.
Loudoun Wildlife Conservatory
(August 20, 2025)
On Sept. 14, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy will host a
special Open House for its JK Black Oak Wildlife Sanctuary, an 89-acre globally rare wetland located near Lucketts. As part of the Open House, several of JK Black Oak’s main trails will be open to the public for self-guided tours for the first time ever, offering a rare opportunity for residents to explore the unique property firsthand. Details in the link.
NBC Washington
(August 19, 2025)
Dominion Energy says right now, for every new data center in Loudoun County, it will need to build a new substation and new high-voltage transmission lines because the grid is tapped out.
Loudoun Times-Mirror
(August 15, 2025)
Months after plans for a new transmission line in Western Loudoun were scrapped, a different project is in the works. At a public meeting in Lovettsville, utility company FirstEnergy laid out its plan to tear down and rebuild existing infrastructure in Western Loudoun, adding a new line to carry more energy. The line being replaced runs through Loudoun, Frederick and Clarke counties in Virginia and Jefferson County in West Virginia.
This clip mentions Tia Earman, the Piedmont Environmental Council’s senior land use field representative for Loudoun and Clarke counties
Rappahannock News
(August 21, 2025)
The Piedmont Environmental Council is scaling up its mission of awareness-raising and warning about the proliferation of energy-hungry data centers in Virginia by launching a statewide campaign, "Vigrinians for a Smarter Digital Future."
Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection
(August 18, 2025)
Blue Ridge PRISM has a wide range of educational tools available on their website, including an Invasive Plant ID and Control App, an updated list of Virginia invasive plants to help reduce the impact of invasive plants on the ecosystems of the northern Blue Ridge Mountains and surrounding areas.
Rappahannock News
(August 17, 2025)
Kaine emphasized that agriculture remains a critical component of Virginia's economic and cultural identity, requiring ongoing investment and thoughtful policy approaches.
Prince William Times
(August 16, 2025)
While greeting voters outside Bull Run Middle School today, Harders - who garnered more than 68% of the 2,678 votes cast – said he felt strongly the county must reject the Digital Gateway and not join an appeal of a judge's recent decision voiding the 2023 rezonings undergirding the project.
The Zebra
(August 21, 2025)
From neighborhood beekeepers to the Beautification Commission, Alexandrians are keeping pollinators thriving and boosting Virginia’s national standing.
Inside Climate News
(August 20, 2025)
The State Corporation Commission (SCC), which regulates Virginia’s utilities, approved Dominion Energy’s request to erect the “Edsall Substation,” a short walk from the Bren Pointe community in Alexandria. The project includes eight 120-foot towers and 230-kilovolt charged cables to serve a lone 176-megawatt hyperscale data center in Northern Virginia.
GreaterGreaterWashington
(August 18, 2025)
As of July 2025, only four units are currently in agreement with DC standards for occupation of the 15 promised by the program. Compared to other cities in the US, DC appears far behind on this sustainable and easy way to improve the housing availability, homeownership and affordability of living.
WTOP News
(August 17, 2025)
The utility said a main carrying sewage to the Anacostia Pumping Station experienced a failure, forcing excess flow into the river. Crews have since stabilized the system, but D.C. Water warns that bacteria levels could remain elevated for several days.
Vertical Farm Daily
(August 15, 2025)
Fairfax City Economic Development and Area 2 Farms have announced a new partnership to bring a sustainable urban farm to Fairfax City. The Northern Virginia-based startup, which is reimagining the future of agriculture through hyper-local, soil-based farming, will open its newest location at 9571 Fairfax Boulevard by the end of the year.
MSN
(August 15, 2025)
NOVA Parks is a regional organization representing Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, as well as the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church and Fairfax that has preserved parkland for park and recreational features for the community.
NPR
(August 21, 2025)
The Chesterfield Planning Commission greenlit an application for a conditional use permit that would allow Commonwealth Fusion Systems to build a fusion power plant in the county, the first of its kind in the world.
Axios
(August 20, 2025)
Northern Virginia's "Data Center Alley" being close to capacity is driving developers south, according to a report this month from real estate services firm Avison Young. As a result, the Richmond region has seen a more than sevenfold increase in inventory so far this year. And the changes are happening quickly.
Free Lance-Star
(August 18, 2025)
Two Fredericksburg-area projects are progressing, including an $84.6 million railcar expansion, with VRE adding 11 new coaches to the Fredericksburg line and 10 new railcars to the Manassas line.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(August 18, 2025)
Of the nearly 1,000 short-term rentals in Richmond, only 10% of them are operating with or pursuing the required permit.
Successful Farming
(August 18, 2025)
Steve Hopkins is a sixth-generation farmer in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia. He has expanded and diversified Riverview Farms — named for the South End River that runs through the property — to allow his two sons to join the operation full time.
WHRO
(August 15, 2025)
Several historically Black neighborhoods near the proposed site say they’re bearing a disproportionate burden of local gas infrastructure.
Potomac Local News
(August 21, 2025)
Speaking about the launch of Virginians for a Smarter Digital Future, a new initiative aimed at bringing transparency and oversight to the state’s fast-moving data center industry, PEC's president Chris Miller talks about transparency, state oversight, protection of families and businesses and incentives for efficiency. “We call it a crisis by contract,” Miller said, pointing to local governments approving projects without fully considering power, water or environmental impacts.
An interview with Piedmont Environmental Council's president, Chris Miller
Virginia Mercury
(August 21, 2025)
Survey finds 73% believe the state lacks affordable homes, with support for easing construction rules and boosting smaller housing options.
WHRO
(August 20, 2025)
Cattle is Virginia’s second largest agriculture industry, raking in over a half-billion dollars a year. Virginia Verified Beef aims to increase awareness of Virginia's locally made beef products.
Garden & Gun
(August 19, 2025)
False Cape, the southernmost state park in Virginia, stretches across a narrow spit of barrier land wedged between Back Bay and the Atlantic. The park is not reachable by car, so visitors arrive by foot, bike, boat, or in my case, tram. The ride was the beginning of a journey granted to just twenty-four guests on the park’s lunar-calendar-led False Cape After Dark tours. Every full moon, a state park ranger and two volunteers take guests into the 4,321-acre property as the sun sets.
Virginia Mercury
(August 18, 2025)
White House budget proposals earlier this summer suggest deep cuts for housing programs that Virginia has long relied on, including the elimination or reduction of funding streams from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – e.g., Community Development Block Grants, the Fair Housing Initiative Program and related vouchers. Nearly 200,000 homes in Virginia receive some form of support from HUD and about 50,000 of those residents use vouchers.
Prospect.org
(August 18, 2025)
Virginia does not have any state regulations for data centers. Outmatched local officials are left to craft their own ordinances and codes, or not. Desperate for tax revenues to serve their don’t-tax-me-again residents, county governments have grabbed onto data centers as fiscal lifesavers. But these water-guzzling, power-hungry projects have major downsides.
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(August 16, 2025)
Of all the issues being decided in this upcoming election, the future of Virginia energy is perhaps the one issue that will most affect your household and businesses on a daily basis. The importance of electing governing officials in November who lead with practicality and common sense, not shallow promises and nonsense, cannot be overstated.
Farmonaut
(August 15, 2025)
Virginia farming grants serve as powerful engines driving the state’s efforts to promote sustainable agricultural practices, preserve valuable land resources, and adapt to new climate challenges. Over $20 million was allocated in 2024 for farmland sustainability and conservation initiatives.
Virginia Tech News
(August 15, 2025)
The 2024 Program Excellence Awards recognize eight Extension programs and the professionals behind them who are making a difference in their communities.
WHRO
(August 14, 2025)
Virginia is racing to produce enough energy to meet growing demand. But solar developers are running into pushback from rural communities, which worry about environmental impacts and changing land use.
Heatmap
(August 21, 2025)
Electricity prices are going up at about twice the rate of inflation. This is becoming a political problem for anyone currently in power, including President Donald Trump.
News From The States
(August 21, 2025)
Americans are becoming well acquainted with data centers’ use of electricity via their utility bills, but the power-hungry warehouses that fuel our insatiable appetite for memes, movies, pics and posts are thirsty for an even more important resource: water. One large-scale data center can consume as much water as 12,000 households, according to the the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
Inside Climate News
(August 21, 2025)
Pushback came during the first of four scheduled public hearings on the agency’s plan to overturn its prior finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The Endangerment Finding has allowed prior administrations to regulate emissions from motor vehicles, power plants and oil and gas operations for more than a decade.
PBS
(August 20, 2025)
A single hyperscale center of the sort operated by tech giants such as Meta or Microsoft — 10,000 square feet or more, with 5,000-plus servers — can consume 1 to 5 million gallons of water each day. That’s 365 million gallons of water a year, or as much as 12,000 Americans’ annual use put together. Not a single Great Lakes state currently has water management mechanisms in place to curb over-extraction. The first step could be revising state groundwater management laws.
Heatmap
(August 19, 2025)
For almost as long as utilities have existed, they have attracted suspicion. They enjoy local monopolies over transmission (and, in some places, generation). They charge regulated prices for electricity and make their money through engaging in capital investments with a regulated rate of return. They don’t face competition. Consumer advocates habitually suspect utilities of padding out their investments and of maintaining excessive — if not corrupt — proximity to the regulators and politicians designated to oversee them, suspicions that have proved correct over and over again. Add private equity to the mix and you have a recipe for the kind of controversy playing out in Minnesota over the proposed acquisition of the northern Minnesota utility Minnesota Power by an infrastructure investment firm acquired by BlackRock.
Latitude Media
(August 18, 2025)
The Tennessee Valley Authority inked a power purchase agreement with Google-backed reactor developer Kairos, marking the first such deal in the United States between a utility and a fourth-generation nuclear company.
The Register
(August 18, 2025)
US companies have invested between $35 and $40 billion in Generative AI initiatives and, so far, have almost nothing to show for it. According to a report from MIT's NANDA (Networked Agents and Decentralized AI) initiative, 95 percent of enterprise organizations have gotten zero return from their AI efforts; only 5 percent of organizations using AI tools in production at scale.
VA Clean Energy & Climate News
(August 18, 2025)
Climate Power is tracking the impacts of the looming energy crisis and aims to provide partners with regular updates with their Energy Crisis Report. This clip links to a fact sheet that offers a snapshot of lost jobs, canceled projects and rate hikes since Trump took office.
The Wall Street Journal
(August 18, 2025)
The Trump administration moves to change EPA rules, asserting that carbon dioxide isn’t a threat to public health.
NPR
(August 17, 2025)
Data center companies claim they bring economic prosperity to communities that desperately need it. But critics say these facilities strain water and energy resources while offering too few jobs in return, and they worry that the energy-intensive data centers also undermine broader climate goals.
NPR
(August 17, 2025)
Data centers have significant power and water demands that can stress small towns, and they employ fewer people than the factories of the past. As they race toward a future that's difficult to predict, communities across the country are weighing the costs and benefits of becoming a data center town, which can vary depending on the resources and character of each place.
The Washington Post
(August 17, 2025)
Dozens of dust events carrying harmful heavy metals and chemicals happen each year across the 120-square-mile playa once covered by the Great Salt Lake, before water diversions, drought and heat caused it to shrink to record lows. Yet there are no comprehensive state or federal records of them — no centralized method for tracking and understanding the long-term effects they are having on Utah’s ballooning population.
WTOP News
(August 17, 2025)
In June, the Senate parliamentarian blocked a Republican proposal in a major tax-and-spending bill to sell off the agency’s new electric vehicles and infrastructure and revoke remaining federal money. But efforts to halt the fleet’s shift to clean energy continue in the name of cost savings. Donald Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, said canceling the program now would have the opposite effect, squandering millions of dollars.
NPR
(August 16, 2025)
Power-hungry data centers have been popping up all over, to serve the boom in artificial intelligence. The Energy Department projects data centers and other commercial customers will use more electricity than households for the first time ever next year. That's a challenge for policymakers, who have to decide how to accommodate that extra demand and who should foot the bill.
Heatmap
(August 16, 2025)
On the third anniversary of the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, Heatmap contributor Advait Arun mourns what’s been lost — but more importantly, charts a path toward what comes next.
Bisnow
(August 15, 2025)
Data center sales have plunged this year, even as construction surges and capital pours into new projects over existing assets — a trend that may leave investors overlooking prime acquisition opportunities.
The New York Times
(August 15, 2025)
The lawsuit seeks to block the Trump administration from repealing the legal foundation for regulating climate pollution.
Data Center Frontier
(August 15, 2025)
NIMBY is no longer a footnote. With billions in projects delayed or blocked, community engagement has become a central part of the AI data center playbook. Here’s how developers can respond.
Heatmap
(August 15, 2025)
Shortly after signing the OBBBA Trump issued an executive order directing the Treasury Department to revise its definition of the “beginning of construction” of a wind or solar project. Specifically, new deadlines for wind and solar development allow projects that start construction before the end of this year to qualify for the tax credits as they currently stand. But projects that start construction between January 1 and July 4 of 2026 will have to follow stringent new rules limiting the use of materials with ties to China in order to qualify.
The New York Times
(August 14, 2025)
A federal judge has agreed to let the Trump administration remove federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken, an imperiled grouse long caught in a tug of war between industry and conservationists. “The court here simply took the Trump administration at its word and does not appear to have grappled with the science, conservation status or history of this listing at all,” said Jason Rylander, legal director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
Shift Key (Heatmap Podcast)
(August 13, 2025)
Most electricity used in America today is sold on a wholesale power market. These markets are one of the most important institutions structuring the modern U.S. energy economy, but they’re also not very well understood, even in climate nerd circles. And after all: How would you even run a market for something that’s used at the second it’s created — and moves at the speed of light?
The Washington Post
(August 21, 2025)
It’s 2 a.m. You’re snoozing in bed. The sun hasn’t risen, but the robin has. It is tuk-tuk-tuk-ing at an unnatural hour, waking you up. If this has happened to you, you’re not alone. Around the world, streetlights, store signs and skyscrapers are pouring artificial light into the night, and all that extra illumination is prompting birds to tweet for nearly an extra hour a day on average, according to a sweeping analysis of more than 4 million birdcall recordings.
Climate Home News
(August 19, 2025)
The COP30 president warned on Tuesday there are differences in how governments think the international community should respond to an upcoming review of countries’ plans to cut planet-heating emissions – divergences he said “can and must be bridged”.
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