The Piedmont News is an email digest of top news stories about conservation, land use, energy, and environmental matters of interest to the region. We hope you’ll share The Piedmont News with someone else who cares about these stories.
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Inside Climate News
(January 29, 2026)
The U.S. Department of Energy used the Federal Power Act on Monday to allow data centers within the regional grid operated by PJM Interconnection, including those in Virginia, to use generators at PJM’s discretion through Jan. 31. The allowance comes amid PJM’s record forecasts and demands for electricity and heat during freezing temperatures. This will enable data centers in Virginia, which has more of the giant server farms than any other state or nation, to run solely on their diesel backup generators in an emergency situation during the remnants of Fern’s cold weather through Jan. 31. The state’s environmental regulators won’t necessarily be notified when those generators start up, state officials said.
The New York Times
(January 27, 2026)
Internal forecasts that Microsoft made last year show the company expected its annual water needs for roughly 100 data center complexes worldwide to more than triple this decade to 28 billion liters in 2030. The tech industry’s limited transparency makes managing water use more challenging, said Landon Marston, a Virginia Tech Associate Professor studying the topic. Companies are not required to disclose facility-level data, and few do voluntarily. (Article is paywalled.)
Reuters
(January 26, 2026)
Power plant outages surged along the eastern United States on Sunday as constricted natural gas supplies and frigid temperatures cut the electricity output of the region's generation fleet. PJM's outages are higher than the grid planned, said Pieter Mul, a grid expert and associate partner at PA Consulting's energy and utilities practice. Mul noted that there is less flexibility in the PJM system than a few years ago because of power plant retirements and a surge in demand from data centers.
Virginia Department of Forestry
(January 29, 2026)
The Virginia DOF is celebrating the Shenandoah Borderlands Project, a partnership between DOF, the USDA Forest Service, The Piedmont Environmental Council and private landowners to permanently protect more than 5,000 acres of forestland in Albemarle and Nelson counties with conservation easements. DOF, PEC and partners recently celebrated the completion of conservation easements on two of the properties and anticipate completing the project in the next few months.
PEC collaborated with the Virginia DOF and US Forest Service to work with private landowners on this conservation project, as part of PEC's wider effort to strategically identify and protect top conservation priorities adjacent to the Shenandoah National Park.
Fauquier Now
(January 28, 2026)
VDOT is seeking public feedback on potential improvement alternatives on Route 28 from U.S. 15/29 to the Prince William County line. The public can review the proposed alternatives and provide input by completing a brief online survey, which will remain open to comments through Feb. 5.
Loudoun Times-Mirror
(January 28, 2026)
Legislation introduced in both chambers of the General Assembly would authorize the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation to acquire Oak Hill, the home of former President James Monroe, as a state park in Loudoun County. On Jan. 28, the Agriculture Chesapeake and Natural Resources committee unanimously approved the House Bill, which will now head to the Finance and Appropriations committee. A companion bill in the Senate passed the Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee unanimously as well, with one abstention.
Loudoun Times-Mirror
(January 27, 2026)
Loudoun County is taking steps toward changes to land use regulations in its rural western region, home to "agritourism" businesses including wineries, breweries, farms and distilleries. After seven meetings with stakeholders, the county Board of Supervisors’ Transportation and Land Use Committee is starting to make recommendations to the full board. At a Jan. 22 meeting, they weighed in on the directions they want staff to take with zoning changes.
Byrd Street
(January 28, 2026)
PEC has announced plans to create what it is calling the Rapidan River–Clark Mountain Rural Historic District, a nearly 40,000-acre historic landscape in Orange, Madison and Culpeper Counties. PEC will hold a public meeting so that community members can learn about the newly proposed historic district, on Feb. 19 6-8 pm at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 28279 Rapidan Road, Rapidan.
This effort builds on PEC's work since 2017 to establish the Rapidan River-Clark Mountain Rural Historic District . Visit our website for more information.
Virginia Department of Forestry
(January 29, 2026)
The Virginia DOF is celebrating the Shenandoah Borderlands Project, a partnership between DOF, the USDA Forest Service, The Piedmont Environmental Council and private landowners to permanently protect more than 5,000 acres of forestland in Albemarle and Nelson counties with conservation easements. DOF, PEC and partners recently celebrated the completion of conservation easements on two of the properties and anticipate completing the project in the next few months.
PEC collaborated with the Virginia DOF and US Forest Service to work with private landowners on this conservation project, as part of PEC's wider effort to strategically identify and protect top conservation priorities adjacent to the Shenandoah National Park.
The Central Virginian
(January 28, 2026)
The Louisa County Board of Supervisors voted 7-0 to refer the removal of the Technology Overlay District designation from a roughly 1,920 property that Amazon Web Services just purchased for $72 million to the County Planning Commission.
The Frederick News-Post
(January 24, 2026)
County officials voted on data center projects without first securing clear, enforceable community benefits, and now — after the fact — residents are being invited to share what they expect in return. Approving them without binding commitments around infrastructure costs, environmental safeguards, and local workforce investment represents a failure to protect the public interest.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(January 28, 2026)
Bills demanding that data center developers tell local governments more about their potential impacts are moving with new energy through the General Assembly. Similar bills have died in recent years. But the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee approved a measure, Senate Bill 552, that would give state environmental regulators an oversight role to make sure those data centers disclose their impacts on neighbors. (Article is paywalled)
Australian Financial Review
(January 28, 2026)
“We acknowledge data centres are part of our modern life, our social life, our economy, but they have got to be sited properly, and it needs to be an open process,” [Burbank] says. “We ought to have a say in where they’re located and how they’re built.” “Virginia has a billion dollars in tax breaks that they give to data centres, which we think is offensive,” [Burbank] says, noting they serve highly profitable technology companies. “Our farmers are struggling, and they don’t get that tax exemption.” (Article is paywalled.)
WHRO
(January 28, 2026)
Open space advocates are concerned by a state agency’s greenlighting of a 22-megawatt solar array on a prominent Virginia senator’s farm, and they are on the verge of asking the General Assembly to tighten a milestone law designed to protect ecologically valuable properties in perpetuity.
PEC's Director of Conservation, Mike Kane, is quoted in this article.
Virginia Mercury
(January 28, 2026)
The combination of solar and agriculture is spreading rapidly across the country. It feels inevitable that the future of solar incorporates farming, and the future of farming may well mean incorporating solar. Whether Virginia’s leaders see this yet or not is another question, but they do have their opportunity this year.
PEC advocates for well-sited and properly developed solar solutions. Such solutions include engagement by both the agricultural and renewable energy communities to create the best dual use agrivoltaics practices. Visit our website to read more about PEC's advocacy for SB 340 (Perry) and HB 508 (McAuliff).
WRIC
(January 27, 2026)
After an initial tie, a bill that would increase oversight of Virginia’s large data centers was reconsidered and passed on a motion to do so, meaning it will now move to local government for review. With Virginia serving as the undisputed No. 1 state for data centers in the U.S. and the world, Senate Bill 552 would tighten oversight on where and how large data centers are built or expanded, with a strong focus on community impact and environmental review.
Virginia Mercury
(January 27, 2026)
Legislation is advancing through the General Assembly to restrict future data centers to industrially zoned areas. Several of the bills are aimed at helping localities manage the industry as well as temper community concerns over environmental impacts, sound, and viewshed issues around data centers.
The New York Times
(January 27, 2026)
The tech giant has spent more than $6 million on TV ads in state capitals and Washington, with the message that data centers create jobs. Amazon is helping to fund a similar ad campaign in Virginia, where it operates dozens of data centers. The campaign — focused on job growth and electricity costs — began in December 2024 and is still running, backed by Virginia Connects, a nonprofit created by the Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group.
WAMU
(January 23, 2026)
Virginia Democrats campaigned on affordability last fall. Now that they’re in control of both houses of the General Assembly and the governor’s mansion, they face a tougher challenge: passing policies that will actually make housing more affordable.
MSN
(January 22, 2026)
Data centers are flocking to America's largest regional electric grid, which covers an area from Virginia to Illinois. But accommodating new large electric loads is a challenge for power grid operator PJM. Now, the White House, along with politicians on both sides of the aisle, is looking for a fix that will keep consumer prices down.
NPR
(January 28, 2026)
The Trump administration has overhauled a set of nuclear safety directives and shared them with the companies it is charged with regulating, without making the new rules available to the public, according to documents obtained exclusively by NPR. The sweeping changes were made to accelerate development of a new generation of nuclear reactor designs, and are being backed by billions in private equity, venture capital and public investments. Backers of the reactors, including tech giants Amazon, Google and Meta, have said they want the reactors to one day supply cheap, reliable power for artificial intelligence.
Canary Media
(January 27, 2026)
How much should data centers pay for the massive amounts of new power infrastructure they require? Wisconsin’s largest utility, We Energies, has offered its answer to that question in what is the first major proposal before state regulators on the issue.
Grist
(January 26, 2026)
With community opposition growing, data center backers are going on a full-scale public relations blitz. Although industry groups claim that each new data center creates “dozens to hundreds” of “high-wage, high-skill jobs,” some researchers say data centers generate far fewer jobs than other industries, such as manufacturing and warehousing.
CNN
(January 24, 2026)
As an electricity crunch drives bills higher around the country, big tech companies building power-hungry data centers are increasingly offering to pay for more of the energy they consume, so everyday people don’t get stuck with the bill. At least, that is the message from seven large tech companies in new letters responding to three Senate Democrats’ investigation into how data center buildout nationwide is impacting electricity prices.
WTOP News
(January 21, 2026)
A study published last week by the Union of Concerned Scientists says building data centers faster than utilities can supply electricity will lead to higher costs for everyone. “This is really a great moment for regulators to do what’s within their authority and sort out and assign the costs to those who cause them, which is an essential principle of utility ratemaking,” said Mike Jacobs, a senior manager of energy for the organization.
