Virginia’s electricity demand is rising rapidly—driven largely by data centers in Northern Virginia. As utilities expand the energy grid to keep up, new infrastructure projects are being proposed across Central Virginia—drawing pushback from environmentalists, and residents in communities such as Fluvanna County. WMRA’s Anjoleigh Schindler reports.
Experts say the state hasn’t seen the need for power grow this fast in decades.
William Shobe is an environmental economist at the University of Virginia. He said the increase in demand is –
WILLIAM SHOBE: … very unusual… we’re hitting rates that we haven’t seen since the … wild growth days of the 60s.
To keep up, grid operators are planning major infrastructure expansions—both new power plants and transmission lines.
One of the largest projects is known as the Valley Link Joshua Falls to Yeat project—a high-voltage transmission line that would stretch roughly 115 miles across Central Virginia, running from an existing substation in Campbell County near Lynchburg to a new substation in Culpeper County.
The project is a joint venture between Dominion Energy, FirstEnergy Transmission, and Transource—a partnership between American Electric Power and Evergy.
It was approved earlier this year by PJM, the regional grid operator that oversees electricity across 13 states and Washington, D.C., as part of its long-term planning process.
The line would operate at 765 kilovolts—an extra-high-voltage level designed to move large amounts of electricity over long distances.
Rob Richardson is the electric transmission communications consultant at Dominion.
ROB RICHARDSON: We’ve projected that we’re going to need twice the amount of energy in about the next 15 years. And so this is just one of the ways that we’re proposing to help manage the grid, help manage reliability, ultimately, so when you go over to the wall and you turn your light switch on in the morning, the lights still come on.
A single line can carry enough power for hundreds of thousands—potentially millions—of homes, reducing the need for multiple smaller transmission lines.
But critics say the scale of these projects is hard to grasp.
Michael Barber is a senior energy infrastructure policy analyst with the Piedmont Environmental Council.
MICHAEL BARBER: It’s a 200-foot right of way across that 115 miles, which is, it’s going to convert somewhere over 2,600 acres of land to utility right-of-way. Land that’s currently forested, currently farmed, has some other beneficial use to these localities. I mean, there’s not a lot of infrastructure projects that go through just that much land and impact just that many folks. … So, I mean, the scale is just huge.
Developers describe it as a kind of “backbone” for the grid—moving electricity from where it’s generated to where demand is growing. That demand is rising fastest in Northern Virginia—but the infrastructure needed to support it is expanding outward into more rural parts of the state.
Both Barber and Shobe say that growth is being driven largely by data centers.
SHOBE: If we didn’t have data centers, electricity demand would probably not be growing much at all.
Utilities often look to less densely populated areas for large infrastructure projects, where land is more available and development is less constrained.
Related proposals include the Valley North transmission line, which would extend hundreds of miles through West Virginia and Maryland, along with new substations and additional transmission corridors across the region.
Alongside new transmission lines, new power generation is also being proposed.
In Fluvanna County, local officials recently approved a second natural gas power plant—known as the Expedition Generating Station.
The project, proposed by Nebraska-based company Tenaska, would be built on a 50-acre portion of a larger 450-acre site near Scottsville—directly across from the company’s existing plant. Once operational, it would generate about 1,500 megawatts of electricity—enough to power roughly 1.5 million homes.
Supporters say the plant would strengthen the region’s energy supply and bring significant tax revenue to the county. But the decision didn’t come easily.
The Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors approved the project in a 4-to-1 vote—overriding the Planning Commission, which had previously found it inconsistent with the county’s long-term vision. That decision followed months of public debate.
More than a thousand residents signed petitions opposing the project, raising concerns about air pollution, noise, and long-term health impacts.
The project still requires additional approvals from state regulators, including the Virginia State Corporation Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality, before construction can begin.
Some people living near these proposed projects remain unconvinced of their necessity or safety.
BARBER: It’s not really serving them… they didn’t ask for it… they’re just the conduit.
Ashleigh Crocker lives in Fluvanna County and says she’s concerned about how Valley Link and Tenaska could affect her family.
ASHLEIGH CROCKER: The last couple weeks, it’s really seemed like Fluvanna is trying to poison my kids.
Crocker says she’s especially concerned about air quality and long-term health impacts, particularly for her daughter, who has asthma. She says it’s even led her to consider leaving the county.
CROCKER: “We’ve built this great community. We love our friends here, we love our neighborhood, we love the life that we’ve built here, and that’s definitely something we’re concerned about, but it would be worth it to us for our kids to be healthy.
Researchers say power plants—including natural gas facilities—emit pollutants like nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter, or PM-2.5, which are known to affect air quality and human health.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, exposure to fine particulate pollution is linked to respiratory and cardiovascular disease, including asthma attacks and heart conditions.
Large epidemiological studies, including research from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, have also found that long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with increased mortality.
And studies published through the National Institutes of Health show that emissions from the electric power sector contribute to regional levels of PM-2.5 and ozone—pollutants tied to increased hospitalizations and premature death.
BARBER: There’s undeniable impacts to respiratory health and air quality throughout an entire region when you build a gas project that large.
At the same time, researchers say it can be difficult to measure the impact of a single facility on a specific community, since outcomes depend on factors like proximity, weather patterns, and cumulative exposure from multiple pollution sources.
SHOBE: When you run a natural gas power plant, you generate pollutants that hurt people… some of the damage is local, some of it’s far away. But we know that the pollutants from these power plants hurt people, and the people operating the power plants don’t have to pay for that damage that’s done.
Supporters of the project say those concerns have to be weighed against broader energy needs.
Tony O’Brien is chair of the Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors.
TONY O’BRIEN: The grid reliability is a real issue, and when you look at the impact of the tax revenue that was being offered, to me, it was a pretty straightforward decision.
O’Brien voted to approve the power plant—citing both economic benefits and worst-case blackout scenarios—like the 2021 Texas power crisis, when millions lost electricity during a winter storm. State officials later confirmed more than 200 deaths, though some analyses have estimated a higher toll.
As Virginia’s energy needs continue to grow, the tension between Northern Virginia’s data center expansion and rural communities’ concerns isn’t going away.
SHOBE: There are huge trade-offs here. … But we should be having an intelligent discussion about it. We should be asking, are there ways of doing this that are better?
