지역 전력망 경매가 2028~2029년 예상 에너지 수요를 충족하지 못했으며, 주최 측은 데이터센터 부하 증가를 명시적으로 원인으로 지목했다.
Chesterfield County has emerged as a major data center hub in Central Virginia following the arrival of three Google campuses, but a looming electricity shortfall is raising questions about whether the regional power grid can keep pace. PJM Interconnection coordinates electricity distribution for 67 million people across 13 states, including Virginia, and Washington, D.C., with Dominion Energy, which serves Richmond, among the participating utilities. Each year, PJM conducts an auction where energy providers like Dominion Energy purchase capacity commitments to meet projected peak demand three years in advance.
Shannon Heckt, an energy and environment reporter for The Virginia Mercury who covers PJM, noted that rising auction costs are ultimately passed on to ratepayers through electricity bills. “Dominion then has to buy that power at the capacity auction, and then if there's not enough power being generated, it leads to higher prices,” Heckt said. “It means Dominion has to pay more, which means that we all have to pay more.”
On July 14, PJM’s auction for the 2028–2029 delivery year (June 2028 to May 2029) fell short of its reliability standard by nearly 6.8 gigawatts—a deficit large enough to power at least 2.3 million homes and businesses. According to PJM, the primary driver is data centers. “The results of the latest capacity auction show continuing trends of rapid large load growth driven by data centers, while generation is coming online at a much slower pace,” a PJM spokesperson told The Richmonder. PJM projects that electricity demand will rise by 32 gigawatts between 2024 and 2030, with 30 gigawatts attributable to data centers “primarily in Virginia but also throughout the PJM footprint.”
PJM’s independent market monitor, Monitoring Analytics, reported that data centers accounted for 38.2% of the market change and recommended excluding them from the capacity auction entirely, requiring them to procure power separately. Other major consumers—referred to in the industry as “large loads”—include semiconductor fabrication plants and energy-intensive manufacturing facilities. Heckt noted that many of these projects are awaiting energy offers from Dominion, meaning the utility will likely need to develop additional generation capacity. “If they don’t start building more, whether it's gas plants or wind or solar, then there’s going to be more of a reliability crisis,” Heckt said.
Dominion acknowledges the strain. While agreeing that data centers are a primary driver of increased demand, a Dominion spokesperson cited additional factors: “the retirement of fossil-fuel, dispatchable generation resources and constraints on the transmission system.” Dominion stated that base rates remain fixed until its next biennial review in 2027, at which point PJM capacity costs will be factored into customer bills. The full financial impact remains unclear until that review, though Dominion maintains that data-center-related costs will not burden residential customers. “We created a new rate class (GS-5) for high-energy customers, like data centers, as part of our 2025 biennial review and legislation from this year directs the SCC to assure during future biennial reviews that GS-5 customers are not being subsidized by other customers or otherwise causing adverse rate impacts,” the company stated in an email.
PJM’s resource demand reached an estimated all-time peak of 168,158 megawatts on July 2, aligning with summer, which typically sees the highest annual electricity consumption. If demand continues to outpace supply, the shortfall could worsen. To mitigate cost volatility, PJM has implemented price caps and floors for auctions through May 2030 to shield both consumers and suppliers from extreme price swings. “Reliability is PJM’s North Star. PJM is working on many fronts to rapidly and reliably integrate data centers and other so-called ‘large loads’ without impacting reliability to other customers,” PJM stated in an email. “Part of this includes constantly improving our forecasting for data center demand, because that information is used to procure generation capacity and plan for high voltage transmission.”
Heckt noted that PJM retains the authority to disconnect large-load data users, particularly data centers, and shift them to backup generators during periods of extreme stress. While this measure is typically discussed during peak summer heat waves, PJM has not yet implemented it. Virginia bears a disproportionate share of this challenge, hosting the world’s highest concentration of data centers. Surging demand drives up supply costs, while WMRA has reported that necessary grid expansions, repairs, and upgrades may further increase consumer expenses. “You just can’t take (data centers) out of the equation when we talk about why we need more power, because largely, in Virginia, it’s because of them,” Heckt said. “Obviously, there are more residents and there’s more electrification of things. Certainly that would increase things, but it’s going up by so much because of the data centers.”
Public sentiment mirrors these technical and economic concerns. A May Gallup poll identified cost-related anxieties as a leading factor in opposition to data centers, ranking second only to environmental impact. Despite growing scrutiny, development shows no signs of slowing. In 2025, Google announced a $9 billion investment in Virginia to expand its cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, including three data center campuses in Chesterfield. The county’s Board of Supervisors has indicated it does not intend to approve additional data center projects.
Governor Abigail Spanberger has defended Virginia’s strategy of remaining competitive for data center development. Speaking with Politico, she emphasized that the sector has long contributed to the state’s economy and funds public services such as schools, libraries, and fire stations. Spanberger also argued that data centers will be built regardless of state policy, warning that rejecting the industry would forfeit Virginia’s opportunity to shape industry standards for environmental safeguards and technological innovation. “If we were to end that in one fell swoop, that has a major impact on jobs in Virginia, union jobs, electrical jobs, certainly the building trades,” Spanberger told Politico. “It has a major impact on many of our communities.”
Currently, the average wait time to connect to Dominion’s grid reaches up to seven years, according to Heckt. For data centers like those in Chesterfield, this means permitting and construction begin while facilities await grid interconnection. “What you’re seeing in Chesterfield with these other data centers is that they’re going through the process,” Heckt said. “Obviously they won’t be able to be connected until much later, unless they decide to do behind-the-meter power, where they build their own power — usually gas turbines on site to power themselves — which supposedly shortens that time. But it still takes years to get that kind of infrastructure up.”
Dominion maintains that it is actively planning for rising demand. A company spokesperson stated that Dominion intends to continue “building the infrastructure that is needed and at the pace that’s required” to meet customer needs. The Richmonder requested comment from Google but did not receive a response prior to publication. This reporting was conducted by Eleanor Shaw (eshaw@richmonder.org), a Report for America corps member. Dominion Energy sponsors The Richmonder but had no editorial influence over or approval rights for this story.