Data center demand poised to deepen WV gas dependence | Energy and Environment

The report by Morgantown- based environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition found that 88% of the gas pipeline’s stream crossings suffered significant declines in the health of riparian buffers — vegetated areas adjacent to waterways that protect water quality and limit flooding.

At least 10 wetlands along the 303.5-mile, 42-inch-diameter pipeline lost their saturated conditions needed to support unique vegetation and wildlife, the report found.

“I think it’s so important that we learn as much as we can from the story of MVP here. Because, let’s face it, we anticipate more pipeline development elsewhere,” Rivers Coalition senior scientist Than Hitt said during a Dec. 13 webinar on the report.

But it’s not energy used to power servers holding data collected by the Rivers Coalition that’s driving a spike in energy demand and threatening economic and environmental health in West Virginia and throughout the U.S. It’s data in centers that power artificial intelligence and cloud computing operated by some of the world’s biggest companies, such as Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft.

S&P Global Ratings, a credit ratings agency, estimated in October that U.S. data centers’ increasing energy demands will lead to additional gas demand of between 3 billion and 6 billion cubic feet per day by 2030, from a starting point of almost none. S&P Global Ratings predicted benefits would accrue most to operators in gas fields near data center hotspots.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline has been providing data centers in the region with greater access to Marcellus shale-sourced gas.

PJM Interconnection, the regional electric grid operator that covers West Virginia and 12 other states, predicted in October that data centers’ 4% share of electricity demand, or load, will triple to 12% by 2030 and quadruple to 16% by 2039.

Gary Jack, senior corporate counsel for FirstEnergy utilities Mon Power and Potomac Edison, told state lawmakers on that there are “a lot of prospects” for data centers in the Eastern Panhandle, even though “we haven’t landed one yet.”

“We do have a lot of prospects, and we want to serve them,” Jack told the Joint Standing Energy and Manufacturing Committee during a Dec. 9 interim legislative session meeting.

‘for all customers’ in Virginia

Although Jack contended that profits from large data center customers could keep rates down for other customers, rapid data center growth elsewhere is coming at a steep cost.

Northern Virginia has emerged as the world’s largest data center market, with several hundred data centers dotting Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties — the latter of which borders West Virginia.

A Virginia state legislative staff report to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the state’s General Assembly this month found data centers’ increased energy demand would likely increase system costs for all customers, including non-data center customers, due to the following reasons:

• A large amount of new generation and transmission will need to be constructed that would not otherwise be built, creating fixed costs for utilities to recover
• It will be difficult to supply enough energy to keep pace with growing data center demand, so energy prices are likely to increase for all customers
• Utilities may not always be able to get lower-cost power if they are more dependent on importing power, leaving them more prone to spikes in energy market prices

A typical Dominion Energy residential customer could see an increase in generation- and transmission-related costs of an estimated $14 to $37 monthly by 2040, the report found.

The report found that even though data centers’ industrial scale makes them incompatible with residential uses, one-third of them are located near residential areas, with industry trends making future residential impacts more likely.

Many data center generators burn diesel or natural gas, emitting pollutants that lower air quality while deepening reliance on fossil fuel power that harms the climate and creates further air and water pollution.

Google revealed in its 2024 environmental report that its greenhouse gas emissions rose 48% since 2019 mainly due to data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions. Microsoft’s 2024 sustainability report admitted its emissions jumped 29% since 2020 mainly due to building more data centers and carbon in building materials and hardware components.

Large data centers can consume 3-5 million gallons of water per day — roughly 5-8% of the total amount withdrawn for public water supply throughout West Virginia in 2023, according to state Department of Environmental Protection data.

Dawn Newell, a DEP unit manager that oversees water use, said in a Dec. 10 presentation to state lawmakers that this year’s dry spells have sparked water security concerns, prompting water conservation efforts. Newell noted reports from concerned citizens over crops and produce, with droughts prompting farmers to sell livestock or wean calves early and inflicting water supply shortages on communities.

Officials have indicated that a potential data center project in Logan County was behind a contemplated but ultimately scuttled special session earlier this month that, if held, may have seen state lawmakers take up legislation designed to allow the project.

A draft bill the Gazette-Mail obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request would have amended a 2022 law to:

• Increase the allowable size of special industrial business districts that permit provision of renewable energy without going through the Public Service Commission from 2,250 to 5,000 acres
• Eliminate a requirement that such districts be on land sold or leased by the state, or land previously used for coal mining

“I knew this was in the making,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said of the potential Logan County data center development during a call with reporters last week. “We’ve tried to be as helpful as we possibly can to try to attract data centers to West Virginia. I cannot tell you how many conversations I have weekly on data centers, the need for power, how much power they need, where they can be sited.”

But West Virginia could be especially vulnerable to a fossil fuel-fired shift toward in-state data center development given the state’s water insecurity and its already high concentration of greenhouse gas-emitters.

“[W]e’re being given the bum’s rush into building dozens of new gas-fired power plants right now,” said Sean O’Leary, a senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, a pro-renewable energy think tank. “ … We shouldn’t give in to the pressure.”

PJM released a plan last month that critics say would result in gas-fired projects to “jump” a backlogged queue to connect to the region’s electric grid.

“Make no mistake: The RRI proposal is more about picking and choosing resource types than it is about getting new resources online quickly,” Clara Summers, campaign manager for Consumers for a Better Grid, a project of Chicago-based utility customer watchdog Citizens Utility Board, said in a Nov. 8 blog post.

Summers noted that PJM endorsed adding “a material amount of natural gas-fired generation” in September despite also releasing an analysis in June that found the system could get to 93% carbon-free and 61% renewable by 2035.

Of the projects slated to clear PJM’s interconnection process in 2024 and 2025, 91.9% are some combination of solar, storage and wind. Just 2.3% are natural gas projects.

O’Leary said the environmental and financial costs to ratepayers of a fossil fuel-fired plant buildout to meet data center-driven energy demand “could be devastating.”

Adding new thermal resources to meet PJM demand growth expectations, O’Leary said, could mean having to build 50 to 60 new power plants.

If by that time natural gas generation makes up 60% or more of PJM generation, customers can expect their electric bills to swell by as much as a third and the energy portion of their bills to go up by more than 60%, O’Leary said.

The Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission staff report on data center industry impacts in Virginia said establishing a separate data center customer class, changing cost allocations and adjusting utility rates more frequently could help protect non-data center customers from statewide cost increases.

In July, Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power proposed revising large capacity power and industrial power service rate schedules to require contracts to last at least 20 years and mandate that customers give at least five years’ written notice of any intention to reduce contract capacity or discontinue service. The companies didn’t propose any rate changes.

PSC staff have endorsed the proposal, recommending that it be even more far-reaching, with a minimum requirement of 150 megawatts of demand rather than the proposed 200.

But an unusual intervenor objected in a filing submitted to the PSC in an unresolved case Wednesday.

Washington, D.C.-based economic consultant Carolyn Berry argued in the filing a proposed minimum demand charge and tariff applicability threshold were “disproportionate and could create barriers to attracting data centers.”

Berry’s filing was submitted on behalf of Google LLC.

Google recommends the PSC start a “stakeholder process” to explore potential changes to the tariffs or consider developing special contract provisions “that better align the needs of both the utility and large load customers, like data centers and advanced manufacturers,” Berry testified.

Berry contended West Virginia is especially well-positioned to benefit from data center development due to what she said were competitive energy rates and abundant land availability.

Berry also cited closeness to the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub, a planned, federally supported hydrogen production and delivery network that would rely heavily on gas as feedstock and produce hydrogen created from gas with carbon capture and storage technology unproven at commercial scale.

“The growth of digital infrastructure, particularly data centers, presents a significant opportunity for West Virginia to strengthen its future economic competitiveness,” Berry argued.

But Jack acknowledged that data centers, which are often windowless warehouses, are relatively low-employment enterprises.

“Unfortunately, they don’t produce many jobs,” Jack noted to state lawmakers.

Community advocates have pushed back against data center development in Northern Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and other areas, viewing data centers as threats to environmental and economic sustainability.

West Virginia is struggling with both, having far more facilities than any other state — 197 — belonging to a list of companies ranked by carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions that was released this week by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Political Economy Research Institute, an economic policy research unit.

But Capito says West Virginia is ready to capitalize on data centers. The incoming chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said data centers will be “exceedingly necessary if we as a country are going to win the race to capitalize on AI.”

“Some states don’t want them anymore,” Capito said. “We want them in West Virginia.”