Google invests in new Chesterfield data center project as energy costs rise

Google invests in new Chesterfield data center project as energy costs rise

Molly Manning, News Editor

A new Chesterfield data center is expected to begin construction by the end of the year as part of Google’s new $9 billion investment in Virginia announced in August by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Google president Ruth Porat at Brightpoint Community College. 

The investment will also expand existing locations in Loudoun and Prince William Counties, according to Data Center Dynamics.

Increased and continuous construction of data centers will coincide with Dominion Energy’s monthly rate increase for customers, proposed at the State Corporation Commission’s 2025 biennial rate review. 

Dominion’s proposal would add $10.51 a month to customers’ energy bills starting in 2027, according to Virginia Mercury. In addition, customers would face another $10.92 average monthly increase for fuel costs, bringing the combined increase to around $21 over the next two years.

Citizens and local environmental organizations began presenting cases and commenting on the review on Sept. 2 — the SCC is expected to share rate proposal decisions in December.

Rates are determined based on costs of doing business, rate classes based on use, reliability and expected future demands, and economic and industry changes, which must be approved by the SCC, according to Dominion.

Northern Virginia is the data center capital of the world, but it’s a common misconception that this “Data Center Alley” has stopped rezoning land for data centers, according to Julie Bolthouse, director of land use for the Piedmont Environmental Council. 

Northern Virginia currently has 200 million square feet of space — the equivalent of 1,500 Walmart Supercenters — of approved unbuilt data center plans and 60 million more under construction, according to Bolthouse.

Bolthouse said it is important to restructure the way energy usage is paid for through these rate classes so that data centers pay a higher proportion of the costs, in addition to utility tariffs — minimum charges for certain lengths of time to ensure that if energy is requested it is either used or paid for either way.

“The costs are going to add up, the more we build, the more those costs add up, unless we fix the structure that those costs are under,” Bolthouse said. “That’s what we’re focused on in the recent biennial rate case in front of the SCC on Dominion Energy.”

Dominion’s proposal would create a new rate class for data centers which are currently included with other large manufacturers. Rate classes are designed to determine charges for electricity use based on customer types, such as residential, commercial and industrial.

Should the new class be introduced, businesses within the class would also be required to sign a 14-year contract to ensure they will pay their proposed energy costs regardless of actual use and consumption. 

Communities with data centers suffer environmental impacts from their development, according to VCU associate professor Damian Pitt, associate director of policy and community engagement for the VCU Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environment. 

Pitt has researched the localized air impacts of data centers, citing their backup natural gas and diesel generators as pollutants of the communities that they are located in, which are often communities of color.

“The neighborhoods that have lower education attainments and higher non-white percentages are statistically more likely to have higher levels of potential exposure to particulate matter emissions from the data centers that are permitted there,” said Pitt. 

Tim Cywinski, communications director for environmental nonprofit Sierra Club Virginia, said that AI is the goal of tech companies and they are all competing to be the best at it. There are no national or state-wide safeguards to prevent big tech from continuing to develop while taking advantage of the surrounding communities.

“Google’s AI endeavors require a ton of space, a ton of energy and a ton of water. You just can’t do that in an urban area. So what’s essentially happening is artificial intelligence is being built on the backs of poor rural areas,” Cywinski said. “Chesterfield is a rural area that has a lot of space and they don’t care that there’s a lot of people who moved there and live there because of the rural character of it.”

Virginians are already struggling with electricity price increases, forgoing basic goods to afford them, Cywinski said, adding that big tech companies have not been paying their fair share. 

“That’s an impossible choice these people are in. ‘Am I going to keep the heat on in the winter or am I going to buy food? Or medicine? Or gas to go to work?’” Cywinski said. “That’s the position they’ve been putting themselves in, data center development has been actively making those people’s lives worse.”