An Amazon Web Services data center in Ashburn, Va. Photo: Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Virginia's top energy official is weighing how to help after Dominion Energy said new large customer connections to the grid could stretch as long as seven years.
Why it matters: The timelines are the latest sign that Virginia, which is by far the world's largest data center market, is struggling to keep up with the volume and size of service requests from the energy-guzzling facilities.
- A one-to-three-year wait extends the typical three to four years the large customer connection process has previously taken, Dominion said.
- The extension has been the "reality for some time," said Joe Woomer, an executive with Dominion Energy Virginia.
Between the lines: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin's administration is still trying to assess the utility's problems and how it can help reverse the trend.
- "We have to keep an affordable, reliable and abundant energy grid, and that includes being able to get people, to get companies and data centers attached to the grid in a timely manner," Glenn Davis, director of the Virginia Department of Energy, told Axios.
- "It's something that the governor is aware of, is concerned about, and we're being very proactive."
Driving the news: The increasing size and quantity of large-scale requests "results in an extension of planning analysis and project execution lead times" for new service requests on its transmission system, the utility wrote in a letter sent to customers last week.
- Existing projects in the "project execution" phase will proceed on previously communicated schedules, the letter said.
- The utility said it's working on solutions, including a web-based portal this year and plans to study service requests in regional batches throughout the year.
- "We are continuing to connect at a record pace and a record capacity," Woomer said.
What they're saying: The Data Center Coalition called the utility's extended timelines "very concerning."
- "It injects uncertainty around many data center projects planned and actively under development across the Commonwealth," said Josh Levi, the group's president.
The bottom line: There likely won't be a quick fix. The issue boils down to a need for more infrastructure — more power plants, transmission lines, poles and transformers.
- Data center developers will seek ways to tie themselves to existing plants or sign contracts to build new ones.
