Data centers in Virginia ordered to pay for transmission upgrades 3&5AUG26

 FINALLY politicians have decided they better start listening to their constituents if they want to remain in office. The only concern I have is " the SCC is ordering Dominion to develop a policy that requires data centers to pay for the upgrades if new substations and transmission lines are used exclusively for data centers. " So if an existing substation that is supplying power to data centers, other businesses, schools and residents is upgraded that cost can be applied to all customers not just the data centers? And will the same be true for additional transmission lines? If so that seems it will be an easy out for data centers to not pay the full cost for upgrades. Governor Spanberger should also order the SCC to work out options for Dominion to refund at least half if not all the rate increases without granting  them any kind of tax break to cover the refunds. We need to keep up the pressure on Gov Spanberger, the Virginia legislators and the SCC on all these issues. This from WSET ABC13 News in Lynchburg, VA.....

Data centers in Virginia ordered to pay for transmission upgrades

by Nick Minock

Wed, August 5, 2026 at 3:02 PM

Updated Wed, August 5, 2026 at 5:20 PM

ARLINGTON, Va. (7News) — Virginia state regulators ordered data centers to cover the cost of power grid upgrades for the growing data center industry.

This new development comes after Governor Abigail Spanberger’s administration got involved.

Governor Spanberger’s administration sent a letter to regulators urging them to require data centers to shoulder the costs of transmission line upgrades, so Virginians don’t have to.

Dominion Energy has over 200 transmission line projects in the works to upgrade Virginia’s power infrastructure and meet the demands of the more than 600 power-hungry data centers.

To pay for the upgrades, Dominion asked the State Corporation Commission (SCC) in Richmond to allow the utility company to increase your electricity bill each month.

But now, the SCC is ordering Dominion to develop a policy that requires data centers to pay for the upgrades if new substations and transmission lines are used exclusively for data centers.

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger celebrated the SCC’s new order.

“I am proud that after my administration urged state regulators to protect Virginia families and small businesses from shouldering the cost of new transmission infrastructure meant to serve data centers, the SCC listened,” said Governor Spanberger. “This order — which is projected to save Virginians hundreds of millions of dollars — makes sure that data centers are paying the full cost of the transmission infrastructure their developments require.”

“It is hard to understate the importance of this decision from the SCC for Virginia families and businesses,” said Chief Energy Officer Josephus Allmond. “Instead of spreading transmission costs caused directly by data centers across all ratepayers, now data centers will pay for those costs directly. The Spanberger Administration remains laser-focused on ensuring data centers are paying their fair share and commends the Commission for this vanguard decision.”

On Wednesday, 7News reached out to Dominion Energy for the company’s response to this new development.

Right now, a bi-partisan group of lawmakers are urging the governor to call a special session to address Virginia’s energy needs and Dominion Energy’s proposed merger with NextEra.

Lt. Gov. Hashmi wants regulators at the SCC to take twice as long as they typically do to review the Dominion-NextEra merger to ensure critical questions are answered.

“What is the public benefit of this acquisition?” asked Hashmi. “What does it mean for us as consumers here in Virginia? What does it mean for the reliability of our grid? What does it mean for our ability to meet the growing demands of energy that we have in Virginia? So changing the lens of focus, the standards by which we go through this process, I think, is really important.”

Hashmi says the current regulatory standards the SCC considers need updating for proposals like this.

“Our regulatory guidelines were written essentially in 1940,” said Hashmi. “So if you think about the vast contrast between 1940 electric utility structures and what we are facing today in 2026, it's a century of difference.”

Dominion Energy told 7News on Wednesday that "Under the SCC’s oversight, we already have among the strongest protections in the country to prevent data center driven costs from being borne by our residential customers. When we file our amended line extension policy, we will be adding even more protections for our residential customers to ensure our more energy intensive customers continue to pay their fair share."

READ ALSO | Data center developers are eyeing a potential location in Fairfax County

SEE MORE | Spotsylvania residents push back on data centers and the county’s low data center tax

MORE | 7News sits down with Sen. Louise Lucas, who is fighting to scrap data center tax breaks

MORE | High voltage transmission line proposed in Spotsylvania, Orange, Culpeper gets pushback

REAL ALSO | Loudoun County schools taking transmission line fight to Virginia Supreme Court

MORE | Virginia's Lt. Gov. Hashmi skeptical of Dominion merge with Nextera, citing concerns

SEE ALSO | Concerns grow as Prince William County leaders consider a dozen data centers

MORE | Residents along path of proposed transmission line pushback on project in Culpeper

How Loudoun County data centers are linked to power flickering across half the U.S. & SUPPORT VIRGINIA DATA CENTER MORATORIUM 24&30JUL26

 WEDNESDAY was a warning of what is to come if we continue to allow data centers to be built without addressing the over consumption of power and water and all the other issues that have developed with the ai / data center boom. Virginia Commonwealth Senator Glen Sturtevant has sent Gov Spanberger a proposal asking her to issue an executive order declaring a moratorium on data centers. My e mail to Gov Spanberger follows this report from NBC4 Washington and after my e mail is the moratorium proposal by Sen Sturtevant....

How Loudoun County data centers are linked to power flickering across half the U.S.

“This is what experts are worried about, right? The data centers are such a big load on the grid that they can have detrimental impact on the surrounding grid,” an engineer said.

By Drew Wilder • Published July 24, 2026 • Updated on July 25, 2026 at 12:39 pm

Just before 8 a.m. Wednesday, electricity flickered on and off for about 10 minutes. An engineer’s data says it happened throughout the Eastern half of the U.S., from Chicago, to Boston and Miami.

He ties the problem to Data Center Alley in Ashburn, Virginia, and says the seemingly small blip is a sign our infrastructure is in danger.

Experts say cracks in our infrastructure grid are starting to show as the data center industry consumes electricity at a rate the world has never experienced. On Wednesday, a crack became visible to millions of Americans in their homes and businesses.

“This is what experts are worried about, right? The data centers are such a big load on the grid that they can have detrimental impact on the surrounding grid,” said Bob Marshall with Ting Labs.

The company sells a device to plug into your wall to monitor your home's electricity and alert you if something's awry, to try to prevent an electrical fire.

“You plug it in, connect it to Wi-Fi. It takes 30 million electric measurements every second,” Marshall explained.

Power drops and spikes in the data: ‘This is what experts are worried about’

With millions of these devices in homes across the U.S., Marshall's data collection saw something he flagged as a concern: At 7:56 a.m. Wednesday, electricity throughout the Eastern half of the U.S. dropped, spiked, dropped, spiked and then leveled off.

Marshall said it happened a few more times over the next 10 minutes.

“This one event, serving either one building or whatever that data center complex is, impacted the entire region here, and this is what experts are worried about,” he said.

Here’s what Dominion Energy says happened

News4 reached out to Dominion Energy about the power glitch. The power company said a piece of equipment on one of its high-voltage transmission lines that serves data centers failed, knocking it out of service. As a result, the data centers systems switched to backup power.

In a statement to News4, a Dominion Energy spokesperson said, “Dominion Energy did not disconnect area data centers from the grid; the data centers’ own control systems transferred them to backup power for a very short period of time.”

Think of ripples in a puddle when a rock is thrown: The data centers switching their power source is the rock. When that change impacted the water – or the power grid in this case – the major swing in a data center switching off sent ripples through the electric current across half the country.

Ting Labs

Ting Labs

Ting Labs provided News4 with a graphic showing the scale of the service disruption.

Ting Labs provided News4 with a graphic showing the scale of the service disruption. The company said orange is really bad and red is worse. Those colors cover more than half of the U.S.

Ting Labs

Ting Labs

Ting Labs provided News4 with a graphic showing the scale of the service disruption.

Marshall explained.

“People working on regulations around this, they're concerned that one of these events in the future could cause the grid to become unstable, and it does not come back to normal in a few minutes or 10 minutes, and we're dealing with a real big problem,” he said.

That problem could be a blackout.

‘The whole industry is facing things they've never faced before’

In this case, Dominion Energy's safety equipment kicked in, worked as intended and mitigated the issue. But in a county with more than 200 data centers, engineers and leaders say this could be a glimpse of how major the impact could be if just a couple of data centers need to switch their power source.

“The whole industry is facing things they've never faced before, and they are doing their best to figure out what's going on and to do preemptive measures. And I think for the most part, they've been able to do that,” said Michael Turner, vice chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.

Marshall, with Ting Labs, said that while there's clear correlation to the data center industry, he stopped short of drawing causation. But Marshall said these types of events are happening more regularly than ever before.

MY E MAIL TO GOV SPANBERGER

I sent this e mail to Gov Spanberger ( abigail.spanberger@governor.virginia.gov ) and encourage all to make the time to e mail her also.....VA Commonwealth Senator Glen Sturtevant requested on 30 JULY 2026 that you issue an Executive Order declaring a Data Center moratorium in Virginia. This pause in the planning and development / construction of data centers is necessary to allow the necessary studies regarding energy requirements, availability, and transmission, high voltage transmission line health affects, backup power systems and their air and noise pollution health affects, water consumption, quality, closed (recycled) water cooling systems and the affect on water availability for residential customers, and making sure utility rates for data centers are not subsidized by residential, school district, and local government customers. The issues and concerns regarding reports about the Virginia DEQ of seemingly deliberately minimizing the air pollution levels and health risk of the Vantage Data Center in Sterling also need to be investigated and addressed. There are already 600+ data centers in Virginia straining our energy and natural resources and communities to the breaking point. We, the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia are asking you and expect you to honor this request for an immediate moratorium on data centers until the mentioned issues are studied and addressed and regulations are established protecting and benefiting all of us.

POST ON FACEBOOK GROUP ASHBURN VILLAGE RESIDENTS & FRIENDS AGAINST DATA CENTER DEVELOPMENT

Spanberger encourages water conservation during drought, while data centers use millions of gallons a day 25JUN26

GOING into our second year of drought there is no justification for mandated water use restrictions and / or increasing water and sewage fees for Virginia residential customers while Virginia data centers are using on average four ( 4 ) million gallons of water daily. Too much of the additional strain on utilities from data centers has been imposed on Virginia's citizens, who's water and electric bills haven't increased with the increase in data centers in our Commonwealth? Corporations paid for enough votes in our legislature in Richmond, with the blatant support of Gov spangerger ( at what price one wonders ), for the tax break on equipment for data centers to be extended. Since they have this tax break mandate the older data centers should spend the money to switch their cooling systems from fresh drinking water to reclaimed water or pay higher fees for the fresh drinking water they use. Depending on the state of the drought as the year progresses and data center cooling needs some of them may have to shut down some servers ( server brownout ) to reduce the amount of water they use. Remember, Virginia is a Commonwealth NOT a corporatewealth, and we the people have reached our limit on our elected officials kow-towing to bezos, zuckerberg, musk and the rest of their lot. Thankfully spanberger can't run for re-election, but the Virginia Assembly would do well to remember this. From ABC8 WRIC.....

 Spanberger encourages water conservation during drought, while data centers use millions of gallons a day

by: Allison Williams

Posted: Jun 25, 2026 / 06:03 PM EDT

Updated: Jun 25, 2026 / 06:03 PM EDT

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Most of the Commonwealth is under a drought warning, and Governor Abigail Spanberger has encouraged residents to conserve water where they can. But with Virginia being the data center capital of the world, the amount of water used to keep them running is raising eyebrows.

According to the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter, a Virginia data center uses an average of four million gallons of water a day. The average person uses around 90 gallons a day, so it can be frustrating to hear politicians asking you to cut down on showers or watering the lawn when the data center next door is using much more.

The machines at data centers create a lot of heat and run 24/7 so the water is used to keep equipment cool. 

Ron Murchek, an Executive General Adjuster with Sedgwick and data center expert, said companies predominantly use fresh drinking water at their data center, but newer ones are starting to use what’s called reclaimed water.

“Maybe water that they have captured in nearby ponds, rainwater they’ve captured from their own property, their roofs,” Murchek said. “They’re really using a lot of reclaimed water for sewage treatment plants.”

The hope is this water can be used up to five times before it evaporates.

But the problem is older centers that use fresh drinking water would have to pay an unappealing price to switch to the more environmentally friendly option. 

“A lot of that really comes down to just dollars and cents,” he said. “If the building wasn’t constructed to use renewable sources, there’s significant costs involved to move to that type of a repurpose of the water.”

Murchek said it’s time for companies to make it more of a priority.  

“There’s a lot of planning that has to change,” he said. “We can no longer just look at the sky for a storm. We really need to look at our resource availability. These data centers need to remain reliable neighbors to everyone in Virginia. Sustainability, disaster recovery must go hand in hand.”

Virginia judge blocks assault weapons ban from taking effect on July 1 25JUN26

 IT is time to level the playing field and make sure those who decide the general public will face risk from all kinds of guns almost everywhere are included. Gun restrictions at courthouses and Commonwealth attorney's offices and judge's offices and sheriff's offices should be removed so these people who supposedly believe in totally unfettered 2nd Amendment "rights" face the same possibility of gun violence as the general public. Won't it be ironic if these people or or their supporters or members of their families or friends or co-workers experience the consequences of their decisions? Enough of this political, judicial and law enforcement hypocrisy! From CBS6 WTVR in Richmond, Virginia.....

Virginia judge blocks assault weapons ban from taking effect on July 1

By: WTVR CBS 6 Web Staff

Posted 5:53 PM, Jun 25, 2026  

 and last updated 12:03 PM, Jun 26, 2026

RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia judge has granted a preliminary injunction stopping Virginia State Police from enforcing the state's assault weapons ban, which was set to take effect July 1.

The injunction lasts until December 31 or until a final order is released, according to Courthouse News.

House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore released a statement on the judge's decision.

"Today's ruling from Lancaster County is welcome, but not unexpected. Republicans warned Democrats repeatedly during the regular session that this law was clearly unconstitutional under multiple U.S. Supreme Court rulings. We look forward to seeing this and other cases continue through the courts."

The Virginia Citizens Defense League also responded, saying it is "extremely pleased with the temporary injunction that was issued today against the unconstitutional assault firearm ban."

"We expect the Commonwealth to appeal and we expect to prevail."

Attorney General Jay Jones confirmed the Commonwealth will appeal, issuing a statement that reads:

"Gun violence is the key driver of violent crime in this Commonwealth and nation, and assault weapons are designed intentionally to inflict maximum damage in a matter of seconds. The assault weapons ban passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor will save lives in the Commonwealth and is compliant with the Constitution of Virginia. This ruling is disappointing and puts our communities at risk. The Commonwealth will urgently file a motion to stay this ruling and appeal this temporary injunction. We will continue to vigorously defend Virginia's assault weapons ban and magazine capacity restrictions and uphold the laws designed to keep Virginians safe."

A spokesperson for Jones said on Friday it was their belief that the injunction only applies to VSP, since Col. Jeffrey Katz was and local law enforcement and Commonwealth's Attorneys could still enforce the law (although some jurisdictions have said they will not enforce the law over concerns about its constitutionality).

But the spokesperson added that another lawsuit challenging the ban in Washington County was heard on Thursday and includes some Commonwealth's Attorneys as defendants. She said they are expecting a ruling from the judge in the coming days and if an injunction is granted, it could have a more sweeping effect on enforcement.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger's office shared the following statement to the Lancaster ruling:

"Governor Spanberger firmly believes that firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong in our communities, near our kids and schools, or on Virginia’s streets. The Governor signed this commonsense legislation to save lives and protect law enforcement officers, kids, and families from gun violence — and the Governor remains committed to making the Commonwealth a safer place for every family."

Spanberger backs House budget as shutdown deadline looms over data center tax fight 15JUN26

 GOV spanberger shows who she is representing in Richmond and it isn't the people. She is pressuring the Virginia Senate to accept the Virginia House budget that keeps the tax breaks for data centers and is warning of a possible government shutdown if the senate doesn't give in to her demands. This sounds like a tax plan and threat NOT MY pres drumpf/trump and the congressional gop / greed over people-republican party would support ( remember the bbb anyone? ). Please contact your Commonwealth delegate and senator by phone and / or e mail and tell them to actively oppose continuing the data center tax break for the billionaires and mega millionaires who do not live anywhere near these monstrosities. E mail and / or call Gov spanberger and express your opposition to her support for the data center tax break. And join the Ashburn Village Residents & Friends Against Data Center Development and Crew, Afton and, Falmouth Neighborhood facebook pages. This from WTVR CBS 6 in Richmond, VA.....

Spanberger backs House budget as shutdown deadline looms over data center tax fight

By: WTVR CBS 6 Web Staff

Posted 6:20 PM, Jun 15, 2026

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said she supports the House of Delegates' proposed budget as state lawmakers race to avoid a government shutdown before the July 1 deadline.

Legislators are set to meet Tuesday to review their proposed budgets, and the House could vote as early as Thursday. But a major obstacle remains: the Senate Finance chair is insisting that a billion-dollar sales and use tax exemption for data center operators must end — a position that puts the Senate at odds with the House proposal.

The governor said her team has not had a substantive discussion on what Sen. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) might present as a counter proposal. On Friday, Lucas posted a graduated tax proposal for data centers on social media but has not presented that plan to the governor's team.

As recently as Sunday, Lucas was adamant that the companies behind the data centers would pay what she called their fair share.

"They keep saying to us, 'well, if we don't get that sales and use tax exemption in Virginia, we're gonna go someplace else.' Well, Senator Locke just laid it out for you: all the other states are saying, 'no, we don't want them' and if we get them, we're going to make sure that we modify how we do these use and sales tax exemptions," Lucas said.

Spanberger reiterated her support for the House version of the budget.

"In the absence of any counter proposal or any additional budget language coming from the Senate, I continue to remain supportive of the House of Delegates proposed conference report, because it's thorough, it's thoughtful, it addresses priorities across the board," she said.

She added that if it were brought to a vote, there is broad support for the measure.

"If it were brought to a vote, certainly there's many members ... of the state Senate whose budget priorities are also in that conference report," she said.

The timeline is tight. While House of Delegates members return Thursday, Senate members do not convene until next Monday. Under legislative rules, an agreed-upon budget must be on legislators' desks 48 hours before a vote can be taken. If a budget agreement is not ready by the close of business Tuesday, the House will not be voting on Thursday.