Loudoun County's supervisor Mike Turner is looking to tighten regulations on data center developments.

Turner, a local lawmaker and long-time data center critic, is leading a campaign to help block developments based on their electricity consumption, reports the Washington Business Journal (WBJ).

Presently, a formal legislative proposal has not been issued, though Turner is expected to do so in the next year and presented a whitepaper at a June 20 meeting of the Board of Supervisors’ influential Transportation and Land Use Committee.

The whitepaper raises the issue of strain on the local grid in Northern Virginia as a result of the concentration of data centers. Turner argues that, without more power granted to the county from the General Assembly, the county may not be able to appropriately deny the project based on power consumption.

Turner is proposing that the country create new rules in its Zoning Ordinance that require data center applicants to include on-site generation or microgrids in their proposals, thus reducing the toll taken on the grid.

Turner added that solar and wind are not sufficient and that the county and industry need to consider onsite natural gas, hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, or small nuclear reactors.

Data centers have been placing a strain on Virginia's grid for years, and in 2022 local provider Dominion Energy was forced to admit that it could not meet the power demand of data centers and placed a temporary pause on data center connections.

Dominion has since resumed grid connections for data centers, but Turner estimates that with demand continuing to grow, the grid can't support the data center projects already under work in Loudoun.

A Dominion spokesperson argued that while they and grid operator PJM Interconnection LLC are obligated to supply power to customers, they will first expand the grid's capacity if necessary.

Reception for Turner's whitepaper was mixed. Head of the county's economic development department, Buddy Rizer, conceded that Turner's data about the data center power demand was accurate, but disagreed with the conclusions Turner came to.

The “industry is working incredibly hard to find solutions, because if for no other reason, this is their business,” Rizer told supervisors. “If they don't have power and if they don't come up with their own solutions — and assuming or hoping that the grid or the power companies will come up with those solutions — it's just bad business.”

Supervisor Laura TeKrony supported Turner's proposal, and said that she doesn't think the county should fast-track data center projects either.

Earlier this year, Turner also spearheaded a campaign to remove data centers as a by-right use on all properties in all zones. A Board of Supervisors public hearing will be held on the matter in Spring 2025. If approved, this could result in data center developers losing tens of millions if land that was bought for a data center is downzoned from underneath them.

In 2023, Dominion Energy connected 15 data centers to the grid with a total of 933MW. 15 more are expected to be connected this year.