The proliferation of data centers in Northern Virginia could end up affecting even urbanized communities like Arlington, officials said at a recent forum.
“We are all connected,” County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said of regional data-center impacts at the 11th annual Northern Virginia Regional Elected Leaders Summit.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is pushing for more regulations on data centers as part of a new package of artificial intelligence bills introduced in Congress yesterday (Tuesday).
The legislative agenda, titled “A Framework for America’s AI Future,” is Warner’s plan for the United States to develop AI responsibly. Virginia’s senior senator said the bills resulted from years of work examining AI’s impact on the economy, national security, competition and American workers.
Democratic leaders in the Virginia General Assembly reached an agreement on a state budget with a compromise on taxing data centers.
The proposed budget agreement, announced last Friday evening, kept the sales and use tax exemption for data centers, which has divided lawmakers in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates. However, it adds a new data center electricity consumption tax, which would charge a rate of $0.011 per kilowatt hour based on the electricity a data center uses each month.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is throwing support behind legislation intended to address the impacts of data centers on rising prices of electricity for Virginia residents.
The Power for the People Act, which Warner is co-sponsoring, aims to address cost and reliability issues associated with data centers’ power needs. The legislation directs states to look into new rate classes for data centers, seeks a new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rule to ensure data centers are paying for infrastructure upgrades that would not be otherwise needed, and seeks to increase accountability in local electricity infrastructure.
High-than-usual electric bills in Virginia this winter have prompted discussion about the role data centers could play in driving up costs.
Dominion Energy, the commonwealth’s largest electric utility company, has said that new rates in 2026 and unusually cold weather could be responsible for many customers’ higher bills.
Increasing power demand from a growing number of data centers, many located in Northern Virginia, has made rising utility costs a key issue for Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) in her first days in office.
In her first address to the Virginia General Assembly yesterday (Monday), Spanberger outlined her Affordable Virginia Agenda, a set of proposals addressing energy, health care and housing costs. Spanberger also issued an executive order on her first day in office that directs her cabinet members and agencies to identify policy changes that would reduce costs for Virginians in energy and other areas.
