Dominion Energy expects to connect 15 new data centers to Virginia’s power grid by the end of this year, with the data center industry now accounting for nearly a quarter of Virginia’s electricity sales.
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The new connections anticipated in 2024 come on the heels of Dominion connecting 15 data centers in 2023 — facilities that totaled a combined 933 megawatts of capacity, the utility said in its Q1 earnings presentation last week.
First reported by Data Center Dynamics, Dominion indicated it has now connected 94 data centers totaling more than four gigawatts of capacity in Northern Virginia since 2019, with the industry’s power demand in the world’s largest data center market continuing to accelerate.
“We're going to see substantial load growth driven by electrification data centers for the foreseeable future,” said Dominion CEO Robert Blue, speaking with analysts.
While Dominion did not disclose exactly how much power the 15 facilities connected this year will consume, the utility’s annual report indicates that data centers’ share of total energy use in the commonwealth is rising. The industry accounted for 24% of Dominion subsidiary Virginia Power’s electricity sales in 2023, up from 21% the year prior.
The energy demand from each data center is on the rise as well. Typical demand from a single data center building has more than doubled from around 30 megawatts to between 60 and 90 megawatts, according to Dominion’s leadership.
In comparison, power requests for campuses now range from 300 megawatts up to multiple gigawatts. The growing size of new data centers in Virginia tracks with a global trend, with a recent study indicating that the average capacity of hyperscale data centers will double within six years.
Critically, Dominion executives also told analysts that data center operators are ramping up operations to use their full allotment of power capacity faster than ever before.
A newly connected data center normally uses only a fraction of the capacity it is allotted by a utility, gradually increasing its power consumption over four or five years as more IT equipment and supporting infrastructure are added according to the company’s growing computing needs. Now, data centers are scaling up to use their full capacity in as little as two years.
“Typically ... they might ramp into that capacity over a 4- to 5-year type of period,” said Dominion’s Blue, according to Data Center Dynamics. “And now that same capacity that we're interconnecting could be closer to a 2- to 3-year period.”
Although transmission problems caused Dominion to delay some new data center connections in 2022 and energy constraints continue to limit development in parts of Virginia, the world’s largest data center market has continued to expand at a steady clip.
There were currently 1,339 megawatts of data center capacity under construction across Northern Virginia at the beginning of this year, according to JLL, with an additional 5,856 megawatts planned.
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