This text was taken from an email alert sent out on January 8, 2026. Sign up for email alerts →
Dear Supporter,
Over 20 years ago, alongside community activists in Fluvanna County, PEC opposed a proposed gas power plant east of Scottsville, Va. in Fluvanna County, by the company Tenaska. Despite the known health and environmental impacts to the surrounding community (detailed below), Tenaska has now proposed a second 1.5 gigawatt plant adjacent to the existing one. It would be built on 50 acres of a 425-acre parcel.
For context, the two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in nearby Louisa County together produce 1.8 gigawatts of energy for approximately 17% of Virginia’s pre-data center energy needs. This Tenaska proposal, and the associated transmission line infrastructure being built, will primarily serve the energy demands of the data center industry in Northern Virginia.
Join PEC and our partners in writing to the Fluvanna County Planning Commissioners and Board of Supervisors urging them to vote no. The Planning Commission will review the proposal next Tuesday, Jan. 13, after it was deferred last November. There was community pushback then too.
Fluvanna County Planning Commission Meeting
Tuesday, Jan. 13 @ 7 p.m.
Carysbrook Performing Arts Center
8880 James Madison Hwy, Fork Union
Impacts are Clear
The Southern Environmental Law Center commissioned an independent study by the Dominici Lab at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to examine the impacts of adding a second gas plant to this region.
The Harvard study indicates that the impacts from the gas plant include:
- 4+ million people would experience increased air pollution, especially Fluvanna County residents in Lake Monticello and Palmyra
- Increased risk of health impacts, including heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, pneumonia, and premature death due to fine particle matter exposure
- Significant disruption to rural communities and conservation efforts from expansion of industrial usage
This proposal is not happening in a vacuum. Across the state, seven proposals for new gas plants undermine the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) goals. One of these proposals, in Chesterfield, was approved by the State Corporation Commission last November after significant community pushback.
Tenaska states that a new Fluvanna plant could power up to 1.5 million homes, but it’s more likely that the energy produced by this plant, transported on the proposed transmission line that extends from southern Fauquier County south to Lynchburg, will be used to provide energy to power-hungry data centers in central and northern Virginia — many of which were approved and built without sufficient energy supply to power them. That proposed transmission line will be approximately 155 miles of 765-kV transmission line between Campbell County and Fauquier County and will be the first-ever line of such enormous size in Central Virginia.
While Fluvanna County is out of PEC’s nine-county service region, environmental impacts do not stop at county lines. Pollution from this gas plant is expected to spread to eastern Albemarle County, including the communities of Esmont, Porters, Scottsville, and Keswick, and as far as Goochland, Powhatan, Cumberland, Lousia and Chesterfield.
Please email the Fluvanna County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors and urge them to vote no on the Tenaska gas plant. You can also show up in person to the Planning Commission meeting Tuesday, Jan. 13. The meeting will likely have many attendees, so be sure to check the Planning Commission’s website for any updates ahead of time.
Thank you!
Rob McGinnis, PLA FASLA
Senior Land Use Field Representative
Albemarle & Greene Counties
[email protected]
(434) 962-9110