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Chief Energy Officer Josephus M. Allmond

Data Center Accountability Framework

Building on Virginia's Record of Progress

The Governor’s Framework builds directly on major measures she, the State Corporation Commission (SCC), and Virginia’s General Assembly have put in place since her first days in office. The Governor signed more than a dozen new laws and took executive action to hold the industry accountable, putting the Commonwealth at the forefront nationally:

  • Governor Spanberger proposed and signed into law the nation's first statewide energy consumption tax on data centers.
  • The Governor successfully urged the SCC to require data centers to pay for transmission infrastructure built exclusively for their operations.
  • The SCC established a new rate structure so large energy users like data centers pay their share of grid costs more fairly.
  • The Governor directed the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to set and enforce a statewide noise standard for data centers and establish “Cooling Water Scarcity Areas” to address the risk of water shortages from evaporative cooling in data centers and other industrial uses.

Additionally, Governor Spanberger signed legislation this year to:

  • Give localities new tools to weigh the community impact of potential projects.
  • Impose stricter emissions standards for backup diesel generators.
  • Establish transparency requirements for data center water use.
  • Reduce costs for cooperative customers by encouraging large energy users in electric cooperative territories to pay for the substations built for their own projects.
  • Require more accurate utility load forecasting, so the state has a clearer picture of how much power data centers will actually need.
  • Require new data center backup generators to meet cleaner emissions standards.
  • Require data centers to complete site assessments on noise, water, land, and community impacts before development — including local review of impacts on farmland, parks, and historic sites.
  • Ensure that data center's costs aren't socialized to other ratepayers or adversely impacting other customers.
  • Remove barriers to allow data centers to self-fund zero-carbon energy while also reducing everyone else's clean energy obligations.