Numerous East Coast states are counting on offshore wind projects to power tens of millions of homes and to help them transition to cleaner energy.

But putting wind turbines at sea requires the cooperation of a powerful landlord: the federal government. Soon, that government will be led by President-elect Donald Trump, who has frequently disparaged offshore wind and said he will “make sure that ends on Day 1.”

In the eight states that have passed legal mandates to reach certain amounts of offshore wind power, Trump’s second term threatens those timelines.

“This is absolutely going to create problems for how we’re going to meet our emissions goals and the energy needs for the state,” said Massachusetts state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a Democrat who serves as vice chair on the legislative Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

For many East Coast states that lack a large land base for extensive onshore development, offshore wind in federal ocean waters is central to their plans for a power supply that doesn’t use fossil fuels. Lawmakers in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia have established mandates requiring their states to produce certain amounts of offshore wind power in the coming years. Other states have passed laws to allow for offshore wind to be added to their grids or set nonbinding planning targets to prepare for the industry’s development.

State leaders say they will continue to pursue offshore wind but realize there may be delays during the next four years.

In the meantime, some say they will continue to build out the needed electrical grid and ports to get ready for turbines, in hopes of speeding up offshore wind once Trump’s term ends. Others say they may need to consider building more onshore energy projects, including wind and solar, in the next few years to meet near-term climate goals.

“That’s something states will have to take into account,” said Dylan McDowell, executive director with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a collaborative nonpartisan forum for state lawmakers. “Is [offshore wind] still feasible, or do there need to be conversations about solar, [onshore] wind, geothermal, other energy sources that could be put into the mix to help meet those goals? There’s more questions than there are answers right now.”

While a handful of offshore wind projects have already started construction or been completed, many more are in various stages of permitting or awaiting lease auctions held by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Industry experts say the Trump administration could deny permits, cancel pending leases and halt further auctions. It could also threaten the industry’s financing by denying clean energy tax credits.

In an extreme scenario, the bureau could even side with opponents who have brought legal challenges against projects that already have been approved and retract permits issued under the Biden administration. Trump’s ability to unwind the moves made under President Joe Biden is “underappreciated,” said Timothy Fox, a vice president at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, an independent research firm.

Trump has repeated claims that offshore wind turbines are a major cause of whale mortality — an assertion that scientists say is false. Many of the groups raising concerns about whales to oppose offshore wind are funded by oil and gas donors.

Trump’s transition team did not respond to an interview request before publication.

Offshore wind also has drawn local opposition from coastal residents who fear it will worsen their views and from fishermen who worry projects could block access to key fishing areas. Meanwhile, some Republicans have pointed to the wind industry’s recent financial struggles to argue that it will increase ratepayers’ bills.

“[T]he business model for these projects has fallen well short of projections to the degree that those wind energy developers are either halting construction or asking the government for additional subsidies to make up for projected cost increases,” four Maryland Republican senators wrote to Democratic Gov. Wes Moore in April, unsuccessfully urging him to veto a financing package to boost offshore wind in that state.

Counting on offshore wind

States’ offshore wind goals were already facing difficulties. Numerous projects were canceled or delayed last year as inflation and supply chain issues raised costs dramatically. Now, political headwinds could cause greater delays.

“Offshore wind might not be a viable option over the next four years,” said Fox, the energy analyst. “Unlike a lot of other resources, offshore wind is reliant on a federal review process because these projects are being deployed in federal waters.”

Offshore wind turbines currently provide only a negligible amount of power to the United States. But a handful of projects currently under construction will soon raise that number to 4 gigawatts (1 gigawatt can power about 750,000 homes). And much more is on the way.

Developers of other projects are working to finalize financing or permits, and wind companies are awaiting federal lease auctions that will open up new areas for development. In total, the project pipeline for offshore wind exceeds 80 gigawatts, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory — enough to consistently power more than 60 million homes. The incoming administration could thwart most of that production by denying development permits or leases in federal waters.

East Coast states don’t have a viable way to meet their clean energy goals without that offshore production, said Maryland state Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat who authored a law last year that increased the state’s offshore wind targets.

“We’ll continue to support the ongoing development of offshore wind until we have to make other adjustments,” she said.

The Maryland law mandates that the state produce 8.5 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2031. Developers of a trio of projects off the state’s coast, totaling 1.7 gigawatts, are working to secure permits and financing, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. And the state is counting on future lease auctions by federal regulators to prompt more development.

Charkoudian acknowledged that Trump could threaten those efforts, but she said the state remains committed to its offshore wind plans. She noted that Maryland is working to improve its electrical grid so that offshore wind projects can “land” their power, an effort that will continue.

“Even if other things do get slowed down, this will make things move faster whenever it can get moving again,” she said.

Nick Guariglia, outreach manager with the New York Offshore Wind Alliance, a network of industry and environmental groups, said that projects take many years to develop, a timeframe exceeding one presidential administration. He also noted that the maturing industry aligns with Trump’s goals of restoring manufacturing jobs and American energy independence. Members of Congress in both parties are seeing economic growth in their districts because of offshore wind, he said.

“This industry has a lot of things to prove about why it’s here to stay,” he said. “Actions are much more important than rhetoric.”

Regardless of what happens at the federal level, offshore wind backers will urge New York lawmakers to continue investing in infrastructure and workforce development to support the buildout of more turbines, he said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

PwC’s Power and utilities: US Deals 2025 outlook notes that only 13 renewable energy deals were done between November 2023 and November 2024, a significant decline from the 27 a year prior.

PwC attributes the drop in volume to uncertainty surrounding November’s Presidential election. A second Trump tenure in the White House will most likely come with an uptick in fossil fuel investment and the loss of some environmental protections, but the authors of the report expect renewables to remain a focal point for organic capital investment and do not anticipate wholesale changes to federal support of the sector.

The bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act has stimulated billions of dollars in domestic manufacturing investments over the last two years, the majority flowing to Republican-leaning states.

PwC notes an increase in fossil fuel generation activity over the past 12 months, which accounted for 19% of total deal value in that span, nearly triple 2023’s level of 7%. Deals within the subsector were driven by an assumed continued need for natural gas infrastructure to ensure reliability via peaker plants- although the first solar-plus-storage peaker plant just came online in California.

In the last 12 months, PwC tracked 30 total deals (valued at a combined $27.8 billion) in the power and utilities sector, down from 52 in 2023 ($43.3 billion). Vistra’s $6.3 billion acquisition of Energy Harbor in March accounted for 22.7% of the year’s deal volume.

Value propositions in the short-term in the sector remain strong, PwC ultimately concludes, suggesting many strategic, financial, and inbound investors are actively interested in deploying capital. While the renewable energy sector could face short-term uncertainty surrounding future federal incentives like clean infrastructure funding from the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office, many industry experts expect a more strategic review of IRA provisions as opposed to a wholesale reversal. Strategic due diligence will be crucial as dealmakers navigate a shifting regulatory landscape and potential market volatility, the report adds, making it important to stay agile and informed about policy developments as the new Trump Administration begins to take shape.

Deals are still getting done

Despite the decline in deals for renewable energy projects, some big ones have still been pushed across the finish line post-election, including financing of a few community solar portfolios.

Convergent Energy and Power just closed a programmatic construction-to-term loan, tax equity bridge loan, and letter of credit facility with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group that will accelerate the construction of a portfolio of distributed solar and energy storage projects. The developer expects $150 million in initial funding.

Last week, Dimension Energy closed on a major financing package supporting the development of 30 community solar projects across seven states. Dimension secured a $284 million construction and tax equity bridge loan led by First Citizens and closed on a structured equity investment from HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (HASI) in a new project joint venture. 

The Dimension deal closely mirrors one recently announced by fellow community solar developer Pivot Energy, also led by First Citizens Bank and including a joint venture with HASI. First Citizens will supply Pivot with a $450 million debt warehouse that supplies the flexibility needed to continually pump out new projects.

In 2023, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) directed staff to review the impacts of the data center industry in Virginia. Now, JLARC has released its findings in the report, Data Centers in Virginia.

In the U.S., data center demand is expected to reach 35 GW by 2030, up from 17 GW in 2022, McKinsey & Company projects. Grid operators and utilities expect to see significant load growth driven by electrification, new manufacturing, and data center development. According to EPRI, 15 states accounted for 80% of data center capacity in 2023, led by Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Oregon, and Arizona. That concentration creates economic opportunities for states hosting data centers, but could also stress the grid.

Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world, constituting 13% of all reported data center operational capacity globally and 25% of capacity in the Americas. According to recent analysis from Upwind, Northern Virginia has a future power requirement of 11,077 MW. Multiple factors have contributed to Northern Virginia’s market prominence, including a strong fiber network, supply of reliable cheap energy, available land, proximity to major national customers, and the creation of a state data center tax incentive.

Dealing with ‘unconstrained’ demand

In addition to the benefits associated with new data center development, like tax revenues and construction investments, they are unsurprisingly also expected to drive an “immense” increase in energy demand, the report said. Energy demand in Virginia was “essentially flat” from 2006 to 2020 – and although the population increased during this time, this was offset by energy efficiency improvements, the report said. A report commissioned by JLARC found that “unconstrained demand for power” in the state would double within the next 10 years, mostly from the data center industry.

JLARC argues that building the infrastructure to meet unconstrained data center demand would be “very difficult,” and even trying to meet half of that demand would likely be a struggle. New solar facilities, wind generation, natural gas plants, and increased transmission capacity would all be required to meet unconstrained demand, and the number of projects needed would be “very difficult” to achieve, the report said. New solar facilities would need to be built at twice this year’s annual rate, and the amount of new wind generation required would “exceed the potential capabilities of all offshore wind sites that have so far been secured for future development.”

Even if the state only tries to meet half of unconstrained energy demand, and Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) requirements are not considered, a bottleneck would likely arise in gas generation. New natural gas plants would need to be added at the rate of about one large 1,500 MW plant every two years, for 15 straight years – a cadence not seen since between 2012 and 2018. With VCEA requirements in mind, JLARC says the biggest challenges would be building enough wind, battery storage, and natural gas peaker plants, with no changes to wind generation needs.

Utility requirements and processes could help limit risks

The report notes that the projected energy demand increases from data centers have raised concerns about whether enough infrastructure can be built to keep up. PJM currently requires utilities to secure “sufficient generation capacity” plus a reserve margin, and the state requires utilities to develop plans describing how generation capacity needs will be met. However, JLARC argues that individual electric utility planning does not guarantee that the generation resources needed for the whole PJM region will be built since regional generation is not centrally planned.

If utilities can’t build enough infrastructure to keep up with demand, they could choose to delay the addition of new large load customers until there is enough generation and transmission capacity on the grid, the report said.

The costs of high demand

JLARC commissioned an independent study of electric utility cost recoveries under current rate structures and found that data centers are already paying the full cost of service, but growing energy demand is likely to increase costs for other customers as well. The large amount of new generation and transmission that needs to be built will create fixed costs that utilities will need to recover, and the difficulty associated with supplying enough energy to keep pace with growing data center demand means energy prices will likely increase for all customers, the report said. Additionally, if utilities rely on importing power, they will be at the whims of the market and its spikes in prices.

Data centers also pose a financial risk to electric utilities and their customers, the report found. For example, utilities could end up building more generation and transmission infrastructure than is needed if forecast demand does not materialize, or if several large data centers close – essentially “stranding” utilities with infrastructure costs they would have to recoup from existing customers. One risk is unique to electric co-ops: if a data center customer delays, disputes, or fails to pay an energy generation bill and the co-op cannot recoup these costs from the customer, all of the other co-op members would have to foot the bill. Finally, if data centers participate in the state’s retail choice program and purchase generation through third parties instead of their incumbent electric utility, generation costs could begin to shift to other customers, the report said.

The report also included several recommendations and policy options meant to help address data center demand in Virginia, including:

• Clarify that electric utilities have the authority to delay, but not deny, service to customers when the addition of customer load cannot be supported;
• Direct Dominion Energy to develop a plan for addressing the risk of infrastructure costs being stranded with existing customers, and file that plan with the State Corporation Commission;

Read the full report here.

Deemed the “Biden Energy Slush Fund” by The Wall Street Journal, the LPO has dabbled in everything from biofuels to hydrogen production, from onshoring electric vehicle wiring manufacturing to disseminating distributed energy resources.

Project IceBrick, LPO’s latest endeavor, is unique even by its standards.

Not just another brick in the wall

This week, LPO announced a conditional commitment to IceBrick Energy Assets I, LLC, a subsidiary of Nostromo Energy, for a loan guarantee of up to $305.54 million (including $303.69 million of principal and $1.85 million of capitalized interest) to finance Project IceBrick.

Project IceBrick is a virtual power plant (VPP) of up to 193 cold thermal energy storage (TES) installations at commercial buildings across California. The TES cells, a technology Nostromo has been touting since 2018 and the main component of the IceBrick systems, will be manufactured for this project and future U.S. installations entirely domestically by contractors in Texas, Iowa, and California.

The technology is hilariously simple. Basically, it utilizes ice to cool buildings rather than relying solely on air conditioning.

Project IceBrick would provide customers with efficiency as a service by freezing a water-based solution during prime solar generation hours when electricity is at its cheapest and cleanest. The IceBrick system would store and later use the ice to support cooling of the building during hours of peak power demand when electricity production is dirtiest and most expensive.

Nostromo says its nonflammable (duh) IceBrick cells are suitable for both new buildings and retrofits, and their compact and modular design makes them easy to configure into spaces of all sizes.

The company’s Cirrus software platform enables the IceBrick systems to operate as a VPP by orchestrating multiple energy assets to function in concert with one other or participating as individual assets. The resulting flexibility of this load shift technology provides resilient power capacity and serves as a load-stabilizing complement to intermittent clean energy assets, Nostromo contends. Project IceBrick also supports a higher rate of grid asset utilization, tempering electricity costs in a state facing some of the highest electricity bills in the nation.  

Nostromo asserts its IceBrick systems would allow California’s bulk power system to avoid up to 500 thousand tons of CO2 emissions over the project’s lifetime. Nostromo plans to share with its customers a portion of the expected cost savings attributable to this aggregate shift in building cooling load and intends to earn additional revenue by having the VPP participate in wholesale energy and capacity markets. At full scale, the project could provide the equivalent of approximately 170 MW (450 MWh) of behind-the-meter storage capacity for hotels, offices, data centers, and other commercial buildings.

Impact and next steps

DOE’s LPO believes the project can create more than 200 jobs, including at least 170 peak construction jobs. Over its five-year construction period, Nostromo Energy says it will create more than 870 annual job equivalents.

LPO’s investment supports the Biden-Harris Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which sets a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments in clean energy and other areas flow to disadvantaged communities marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. Some energy justice advocates fear Justice40 will be among the first items on the chopping block under the incoming Trump Administration, which could butcher provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Project IceBrick is the third VPP project LPO has announced and the first to use cold TES. VPPs are aggregations of electrified, grid-connected devices, including grid-interactive efficient buildings, that reduce utilities’ reliance on natural gas peaker plants and reduce the strain on transmission and distribution infrastructure by intelligently time-shifting and shaving electricity demand.

If Nostromo Energy’s loan guarantee is finalized, it will be offered through the Innovation Energy category of LPO’s Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program, which includes financing opportunities for projects that deploy new or significantly improved high-impact clean energy technologies. Interest in projects like IceBrick is also supported by the IRA’s Section 48 Investment Tax Credit, which allows businesses to deduct a significant percentage of the installation costs of TES and other clean technology installations from their federal taxes.  

DOE must still complete an environmental review and Nostromo must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, commercial, and financial conditions before the feds can decide whether to enter into definitive financing documents and fund the loan guarantee.

Originally published in Renewable Energy World.

Across the U.S. and worldwide, energy demand is soaring as data centers work to support the wide and growing use of artificial intelligence. These large facilities are filled with powerful computers, called servers, that run complex algorithms to help AI systems learn from vast amounts of data.

This process requires tremendous computing power, which consumes huge quantities of electricity. Often, a single data center will use amounts comparable to the power needs of a small town. This heavy demand is stressing local power grids and forcing utilities to scramble to provide enough energy to reliably power data centers and the communities around them.

My work at the intersection of computing and electric power engineering includes research on operating and controlling power systems and making the grid more resilient. Here are some ways in which the spread of AI data centers is challenging utilities and grid managers, and how the power industry is responding.

Upsetting a delicate balance

Electricity demand from data centers can vary dramatically throughout the day, depending on how much computing the facility is doing. For example, if a data center suddenly needs to perform a lot of AI computations, it can draw a huge amount of electricity from the grid in a period as short as several seconds. Such sudden spikes can cause problems for the power grid locally.

Electric grids are designed to balance electricity supply and demand. When demand suddenly increases, it can disrupt this balance, with effects on three critical aspects of the power grid:

• Voltage can be thought of as the push that makes electricity move, like the pressure in a water hose. If too many data centers start demanding electricity at the same time, it’s like turning on too many taps in a building at once and reducing its water pressure. Abrupt shifts in demand can cause voltage fluctuations, which may damage electrical equipment.
• Frequency is a measurement of how electric current oscillates back and forth per second as it travels from power sources to load demand through the network. The U.S. and most major countries transmit electricity as alternating current, or AC, which periodically reverses direction. Power grids operate at a stable frequency, usually 50 or 60 cycles per second, known as hertz; the U.S. grid operates at 60 Hz. If demand for electricity is too high, the frequency can drop, which can cause equipment to malfunction.
• Power balance is the constant real-time match between electricity supply and demand. To maintain a steady supply, power generation must match power consumption. If an AI data center suddenly demands a lot more electricity, it’s like pulling more water from a reservoir than the system can provide. This can lead to power outages or force the grid to rely on backup power sources, if available.

Peaks and valleys in power use

To see how operating decisions can play out in real time, let’s consider an AI data center in a city. It needs 20 megawatts of electricity during its peak operations – the equivalent of 10,000 homes turning on their air conditioners at the same time. That’s large but not outsize for a data center: Some of the biggest facilities can consume more than 100 megawatts.

Many industrial data centers in the U.S. draw this amount of power. Examples include Microsoft data centers in Virginia that support the company’s Azure cloud platform, which powers services such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s data center in The Dalles, Oregon, which supports various AI workloads, including Google Gemini.

The center’s load profile, a timeline of its electricity consumption through a 24-hour cycle, can include sudden spikes in demand. For instance, if the center schedules all of its AI training tasks for nighttime, when power is cheaper, the local grid may suddenly experience an increase in demand during these hours.

Here’s a simple hypothetical load profile for an AI data center, showing electricity consumption in megawatts:

• 6 a.m.-8 a.m.: 10 MW (low demand)
• 8 a.m.-12 p.m.: 12 MW (moderate demand)
• 12 p.m.-6 p.m.: 15 MW (higher demand due to business hours)
• 6 p.m.-12 a.m.: 20 MW (peak demand due to AI training tasks)
• 12 a.m.-6 a.m.: 12 MW (moderate demand due to maintenance tasks)

Ways to meet demand

There are several proven strategies for managing this kind of load and avoiding stress to the grid.

First, utilities can develop a pricing mechanism that gives AI data centers an incentive to schedule their most power-intensive tasks during off-peak hours, when overall electricity demand is lower. This approach, known as demand response, smooths out the load profile, avoiding sudden spikes in electricity usage.

Second, utilities can install large energy storage devices to bank electricity when demand is low, and then discharge it when demand spikes. This can help smooth the load on the grid.

Third, utilities can generate electricity from solar panels or wind turbines, combined with energy storage, so that they can provide power for periods when demand tends to rise. Some power companies are using this combination at a large scale to meet growing electricity demand.

Fourth, utilities can add new generating capacity near data centers. For example, Constellation plans to refurbish and restart the undamaged unit at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, to power Microsoft data centers in the mid-Atlantic region.

In Virginia, Dominion Energy is installing gas generators and plans to deploy small modular nuclear reactors, along with making investments in solar, wind and storage. And Google has signed an agreement with California-based Kairos Power to purchase electricity from small modular nuclear reactors.

Finally, grid managers can use advanced software to predict when AI data centers will need more electricity, and communicate with power grid resources to adjust accordingly. As companies work to modernize the national electric grid, adding new sensor data and computing power can maintain voltage, frequency and power balance.

Ultimately, computing experts predict that AI will become integrated into grid management, helping utilities anticipate issues such as which parts of the system need maintenance, or are at highest risk of failing during a natural disaster. AI can also learn load profile behavior over time and near AI data centers, which will be useful for proactively balancing energy and managing power resources.

The U.S. grid is far more complicated than it was a few decades ago, thanks to developments such as falling prices for solar power. Powering AI data centers is just one of many challenges that researchers are tackling to supply energy for an increasingly wired society.

Anurag Srivastava, Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ALEXANDRIA, VA. (AP) — The sprawling, windowless warehouses that hold rows of high-speed servers powering almost everything the world does on phones and computers are increasingly becoming fixtures of the American landscape, popping up in towns, cities and suburbs across the United States.

Demand for data centers ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and urban and rural governments alike are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies.

But as data centers begin to move into more densely populated areas, abutting homes and schools, parks and recreation centers, some residents are pushing back against the world’s most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities.

In Northern Virginia, more than 300 data centers dot the rolling hills of the area’s westernmost counties and butt up against wooded bike trails winding through the suburbs. But one of the latest proposals in the area, Plaza 500, would see a 466,000-square-foot facility and adjacent electrical substation built a few hundred feet from townhomes, playgrounds and a community center.

The pitch from Starwood Capital Group, the private investment firm founded by billionaire Barry Sternlicht, to Fairfax County officials promised jobs and a significant property tax boost. But data center critics say the incentives aren’t enough to counteract the consequences of building the facilities so close to homes.

Tyler Ray, a leader in the fight against the Virginia project, worries that more data centers in the area could compromise the already stressed power grid: Over 25% of all power produced in Virginia in 2023 went to data centers, a figure that could rise as high as 46% by 2030 if data center growth continues at its current pace. Some estimates also show a mid-sized data center commands the same water usage every day as 1,000 households, prompting concerns over the cost of water. Ray also frets over air quality, as the massive diesel generators that help power the data centers’ hardware send plumes of toxic pollutants into the atmosphere.

Ray and his neighbors tried to stop the development, but their efforts were largely unsuccessful. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in September said all newly proposed data centers must adhere to stricter zoning rules, but the Plaza 500 project was exempt.

“I don’t know how a general resident, even someone who has been engaging intently on an issue, has any chance to go up against the data center industry,” Ray said the night the supervisors voted.

For local governments, attracting data centers to their municipalities means a financial boon: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in 2024 that Virginia’s current data centers brought in $1 billion in tax revenue.

For average-sized facilities, data centers offer a small number of direct jobs – often fewer than 100 positions. Google announced recently that its investment in nearby Loudoun County, which included two data centers, created around 150 direct jobs, a figure that data center opponents say isn’t worth the hassle. But data center advocates argue that the number of indirect jobs like construction, technology support and electrical work make the projects worthwhile. In that same announcement, Google said their investment spurred 2,730 indirect jobs.

Kathy Smith, the vice chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, voted in favor of the Plaza 500 proposal because, in her estimation, data center growth is inevitable in the region, and Fairfax County should reap the benefits.

“I have a responsibility to step back from what we do and look at the big picture,” Smith said. “Data centers are not going away.”

On the other side of the country, in Morrow County, Oregon, Amazon Web Services has built at least five data centers surrounding the 4,200-person town of Boardman, nestled among vast stretches of farmland flecked with mint patches and wind turbines, next to the Columbia river.

Last year, AWS paid roughly $34 million in property taxes and fees stipulated in the agreements after receiving a $66 million tax break. Those payments, in addition to $1.7 in charitable donations from the company in 2023, have been instrumental in updating infrastructure and bolstering services. These funds have gone toward a new ladder fire engine, a school resource officer and $5,000 grants for homebuyers so far totaling at least $2.8 million.

“This road right here? Wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for AWS,” said Boardman Mayor Paul Keefer, riding in the passenger seat of Police Chief Rick Stokoe’s cruiser, pointing out the window at construction workers shifting dirt and laying pavement.

AWS has cultivated relationships with local officials including Keefer and Stokoe, who have both been in positions to vote on whether to authorize tax breaks with the company. Some former county commissioners and residents worry that those relationships are too cozy.

Kevin Miller, AWS’s vice president of global data centers, said in an interview with the Associated Press that “our interest is in being a model corporate citizen, to really be partners with those communities.”

Skepticism of the deals started years ago, when three formerly elected officials allegedly helped approve data center deals while also owning a stake in a company that contracted with AWS to provide fiber optic cables for the data centers. In June, they each paid $2,000 to settle an ethics complaint.

Those officials are no longer in office. But the latest data center deal struck between Morrow County officials and AWS, which gives the company an estimated $1 billion in tax breaks spread over the 15 years to build five new data centers, again raised eyebrows.

Two former Morrow County Commissioners, Jim Doherty and Melissa Lindsay, pushed unsuccessfully in 2022 for AWS to pay more in taxes in new data center negotiations.

“We didn’t want to blow it up. We didn’t want to run them off,” said Lindsay. “But there were better deals to be made.”

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The largest artificial intelligence data center ever built by Facebook’s parent company Meta is coming to northeast Louisiana, the company said Wednesday, bringing hopes that the $10 billion facility will transform an economically neglected corner of the state.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry called it “game-changing” for his state’s expanding tech sector, yet some environmental groups have raised concerns over the center’s reliance on fossil fuels — and whether the plans for new natural gas power to support it could lead to higher energy bills in the future for Louisiana residents.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is expanding its existing supercomputer project in Memphis, Tennessee, the city’s chamber of commerce said Wednesday. The chamber also said that Nvidia, Dell, and Supermicro Computer will be “establishing operations in Memphis,” without offering further details.

Louisiana is among a growing number of states offering tax credits and other incentives to lure big tech firms seeking sites for energy-intensive data centers.

The U.S. Commerce Department found that there aren’t enough data centers in the U.S. to meet the rising AI-fueled demand, which is projected to grow by 9% each year through 2030, citing industry reports.

Meta anticipates its Louisiana data center will create 500 operational jobs and 5,000 temporary construction jobs, said Kevin Janda, director of data center strategy. At 4 million square feet (370,000 square meters), it will be the company’s largest AI data center to date, he added.

“We want to make sure we are having a positive impact on the local level,” Janda said.

Congressional leaders and local representatives from across the political spectrum heralded the Meta facility as a boon for Richland parish, a rural part of Louisiana with a population of 20,000 historically reliant on agriculture. About one in four residents are considered to live in poverty and the parish has an employment rate below 50%, according to the U.S. census data.

Meta plans to invest $200 million into road and water infrastructure improvements for the parish to offset its water usage. The facility is expected to be completed in 2030.

Entergy, one of the nation’s largest utility providers, is fast-tracking plans to build three natural gas power plants in Louisiana capable of generating 2,262 megawatts for Meta’s data center over a 15-year period — nearly one-tenth of Entergy’s existing energy capacity across four states.

The Louisiana Public Service Commission is weighing Entergy’s proposal as some environmental groups have opposed locking the state into more fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure. Meta said it plans to help bring 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy onto the grid in the future.

Louisiana residents may ultimately end up with rate increases to pay off the cost of operating these natural gas power plants when Meta’s contract with Entergy expires, said Jessica Hendricks, state policy director for the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a Louisiana-based nonprofit advocating for energy consumers.

“There’s no reason why residential customers in Louisiana need to pay for a power plant for energy that they’re not going to use,” Hendricks said. “And we want to make sure that there’s safeguards in place.”

Public service commissioner Foster Campbell, representing northeast Louisiana, said he does not believe the data center will increase rates for Louisiana residents and views it as vital for his region.

“It’s going in one of the most needed places in Louisiana and maybe one of the most needed places in the United States of America,” Foster said. “I’m for it 100%.”

Environmental groups have also warned of the pollution generated by Musk’s AI data center in Memphis. The Southern Environmental Law Center, among others, says the supercomputer could strain the power grid, prompting attention from the Environmental Protection Agency. Eighteen gas turbines currently running at xAI’s south Memphis facility are significant sources of ground-level ozone, better known as smog, the group said.

Patrick Anderson, an attorney at the law center, said xAI has operated with “a stunning lack of transparency” in developing its South Memphis facility, which is located near predominantly Black neighborhoods that have long dealt with pollution and health risks from factories and other industrial sites.

“Memphians deserve to know how xAI will affect them,” he said, “and should have a seat at the table when these decisions are being made.”

Quaise and NGM are exploring additional decarbonization of the latter’s newly commissioned 200-megawatt (MW) solar power plant by using geothermal heat from NGM’s land and subsurface holdings to hybridize on-site power generation.

The TS Solar Power Plant has the capacity to produce 17% of NGM’s annual power demand while realizing an equivalent emissions reduction of 234 Kt of carbon dioxide per year. Barrick president and chief executive Mark Bristow says the solar facility will reduce NGM’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions by 8% against a 2018 baseline.

NGM is currently in the process of converting to co-fire capabilities at the plant, planning to use cleaner-burning natural gas as another fuel source. In its partnership with Quaise, NGM is also investigating deep geothermal energy sources to further reduce the plant’s fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It marks the commercial pilot for retrofitting a fossil fuel power plant to accommodate geothermal heat.

“Nevada Gold Mines is targeting an overall 30% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030,” explained Henri Gonin, managing director of Nevada Gold Mines. “We continue to pursue initiatives that economically reduce our reliance on carbon-based electricity sources. Quaise offers a unique prospective solution to hybridize our on-site power generation with clean geothermal heat.”

Quaise Energy spun out of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2018. The company has raised more than $95 million to date, including a $21M Series A1 financing round led by Prelude Ventures and Safar Partners in March 2024. Mitsubishi Corporation and Standard Investments were among several new participating investors.

The startup says its approach to geothermal is unique by going hotter and deeper to significantly increase power density and worldwide accessibility. Outfitting existing drilling rigs with millimeter wave technology accelerates the development of deep geothermal energy by leveraging the fossil fuel infrastructure of today, it argues.

“Deep geothermal can decarbonize critical industrial processes like mining because of its superior power density,” said Carlos Araque, president and CEO of Quaise Energy. “Our millimeter wave drilling technology is the key to unlocking high-grade geothermal heat, repositioning fossil-fired assets for a clean energy future.”

Quaise Energy bills itself as “terawatt-scale geothermal,” opening access to renewable baseload power for the planet. Deep geothermal uses less than 1% of the land and materials of other renewables, making it the only option for a sustainable clean energy transition, according to its website. Deep geothermal wells can be drilled in more places around the world, even next to existing power plants, and can compete with fossil fuels on cost while eliminating carbon emissions.

According to Quaise, deep geothermal power plants can create 10 times more energy than conventional geothermal can while providing 24/7 baseload power on a relatively small land footprint. The company believes the retrofit of NGM’s TS Power Plant positions Quaise to go from drilling field trials to full commercial deployment of its technology. The ongoing partnership with NGM also invites other industrial use applications worldwide.

Originally published in Renewable Energy World.

If Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly are aligned on one thing, it’s their enthusiasm for bringing more data centers to the commonwealth. Where they part ways is in how to provide enough electricity to power them. Youngkin and most Republican legislators advocate for an “all of the above” approach that includes fossil gas as well as renewables; Democrats are committed to staying the course on the transition to zero-carbon energy, with a near-term emphasis on low-cost solar. 

Data centers are making the transition harder, but so is local resistance to building solar. General Assembly members mostly understand the connection, leading to a lively debate in last year’s legislative session over whether to override some local permit denials for solar projects – and if so, how to ensure the localities still have some say. Though none of the legislative proposals moved forward last year, the topic has become a central one for the recently revamped Committee on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR). 

In January, the General Assembly is likely to consider legislation to override local solar permit denials in some cases, such as last year’s HB636 from Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, or another approach that would break the solar logjam. It remains to be seen, however,  whether legislators will take any action on data centers.

The problem has grown only more urgent as localities have continued to approve new data center proposals with little thought given to where and how they will get the power to serve them.

Ann Bennett, Sierra Club Virginia’s data center chair, has been tracking data center permit applications across the state. She counts at least two dozen Virginia counties with data centers under development, including rural areas far outside the industry’s stronghold in suburban Northern Virginia. By Bennett’s calculation, data centers existing and under development in Virginia will consume at least 100,000 acres. 

Even as local governments woo data centers, many have become hostile to solar development. A presentation from the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia, which tracks solar permitting across Virginia, shows that far more local permits for solar facilities have been denied or withdrawn than were approved this year. 

In some cases, county boards that approve data center development also reject permits for solar farms. Sometimes, it happens even at the same meeting.

In an effort to understand this paradox, I watched footage from two county board meetings in Hanover County, one in March of this year and the other in September. At the March meeting, county supervisors approved a 1,200-acre data center complex for an area north of Ashland. Later the same night, they denied a permit for a utility-scale solar project. 

The parcels of land slated to be developed for the data center complex “included wooded areas, recently-logged areas, open fields, wetlands, ponds and stream corridors.” The developer plans to build about 30 data centers on the property, each 110 feet tall (about 10 stories), with setbacks from the property line ranging from 150 to 250 feet. The complex will require 700,000 gallons per day of cooling water. When fully developed, the data centers are expected to total a staggering 2,400 megawatts (MW) of power capacity, not far short of what all of Loudoun County had in 2022. There was no discussion of where so much electricity would come from. 

Public testimony was overwhelmingly negative. The objections echoed those that have been widely reported in response to projects such as the Prince William Digital Gateway: noise, light, a massive increase in truck traffic, secrecy surrounding the project, air pollution from diesel back-up generators. 

Yet the Hanover supervisors voted unanimously in favor of the project. It came down to money: the developer promised a tax benefit to the county over 20 years of $1.8 billion, plus upfront cash for road improvements and a $100,000 donation to a park. Supervisor Jeff Stoneman, who represents the Beaverdam district where the complex will be located, acknowledged his constituents’ concerns but noted that the revenue would be a “game-changer for this community.” 

Even for me, as thoroughly aware as I am of all the downsides of data center sprawl, the negative impacts on communities, the risks to our water and energy security, the possibility that folks will be left with nothing but regrets – well, I just have to say: It’s really hard to argue with $1.8 billion. Rural leaders see Loudoun County raking in revenue from data centers, letting it cut taxes for everyone else. Why wouldn’t they want in on that?

As I noted before, though, there was no discussion of how or where the enormous amount of electricity needed to power the data centers would be generated. This disconnect was underscored later in the same meeting when the supervisors voted to reject a 20 MW solar project on 100 acres of a 315-acre site, in the same district as the data center complex they had just approved. 

It was especially hard to understand the denial of this particular permit. Supervisors agreed the project met all the terms of the county’s solar ordinance, including provisions for the use of native grasses and pollinator plants. Most of the property would remain untouched. The county would receive an upfront cash contribution of $438,600, in addition to the increased tax revenue from the project. The planning commission had recommended approval. No one testified against it; a number of people, including the farmer across the street, testified in its favor.  

Most of the discussion of the project focused on screening the solar panels from view. Supervisors fussed that the trees to be planted at the entrance were too small, and worried that some of the existing mature trees along the road might die off over time and not be replaced. The developer agreed to put larger trees at the entrance, and even to walk the perimeter annually to monitor the health of the trees, and replace any if they needed to.

It was no use. Two of the supervisors wanted to approve the project, but they were outvoted. Stoneman, the Beaverdam supervisor who had led the way in supporting the data center complex, said he worried that erosion might impair the creek on the property, in spite of ample natural buffers, and said he did not have a “comfort level” with the project.

Evidently, the county’s solar ordinance, adopted in 2023, was irrelevant, or at least, misleading. Such objective standards make a developer think it will be worth their while to put in months of planning, public outreach, and working with county staff. But then it turns out that what actually matters is whether a supervisor can achieve a certain undefined “comfort level.” 

Six months after the approval of the 2,400 MW data center complex and the denial of the 20 MW solar facility, another solar project met the same fate, again with Stoneman making the motion to deny the permit. 

This time the project would take up 250 acres of a 1,500-acre site and produce 72 MW of electricity, achieved through stacking the panels to a double height. Again, the project more than met the requirements of the county solar ordinance. The land was described as currently consisting of managed pine forest, already subject to being cut over at any time, and fully 70% of the property would be preserved for conservation. Native grasses would be planted, and sheep would do most of the vegetation management. The shepherd, Marcus Gray of Gray’s Lambscaping, attended the hearing to describe the sheep operations he runs successfully at other solar sites.  

Approval of the project would earn the county roughly $1.7 million upfront, and $300,000 in annual tax revenue. 

Supervisors praised the developer for “a really good application” that “respected” the ordinance and the environment, for the company’s willingness to listen and respond to concerns, and for agreeing to build stormwater basins and sacrifice buildable space in favor of conservation. 

Several members of the public testified in favor of the project, but this time there were also opponents. Some of them repeated common myths about solar panel toxicity and the risk of fires. One woman stated flatly, and obviously incorrectly, that it was not possible to raise sheep at a solar farm because they would die from the heat. 

The supervisors themselves did not appear ill-informed or misinformed, though one expressed surprise that Gray could successfully sell his lamb at farmers markets when buyers knew where they had been raised. (Watching, I could only laugh, because I’ve always thought of the solar-sheep synergy as a great selling point for climate-conscious carnivores.) 

The concern raised most often was the risk of impacts to the nearby North Anna River, though the developer had agreed to shrink the project to accommodate a much greater setback from the river than required. 

Ultimately, however, Supervisor Stoneman’s argument for denying the permit rested on a different argument. He praised the developer for doing a good job, and noted the project was in accordance with all requirements. But, he said, “Beaverdam is just a different place.” People take pride in the rural character and forest and farmland. Our job, he noted, is to protect the trees that are harvested on the site currently, something “that is as important as the power.” 

“Money is not the most important thing,” concluded the man who led the cheering squad for a data center complex in his district six months earlier.  

The two supervisors who had supported the smaller solar facility that had been rejected in March made their best arguments for this project as well, though they ultimately voted with Stoneman as the home supervisor. One said she supported solar “because I’m pro-farm,” and solar is a way to preserve farmland from development. The other noted that the land would certainly be developed one way or another, and the results would almost certainly be worse. Maintaining rural culture is important, he noted, but “we are approving residential development and seeing by-right development that people don’t want either.”

He also warned his colleagues, as he had in the spring, that rejecting good solar projects was going to result in legislation that would take away local authority and give it to the unelected State Corporation Commission. He said he would go along with Stoneman’s motion to deny the permit because “I assume he knows something,” but he made it clear he considered it the wrong decision, and a dangerous one for local autonomy.

Evidently, he had been paying attention to the conversation at the General Assembly.

To be clear, my sympathies lie wholeheartedly with people whose instincts are to protect the woods and fields around them. I share the one Hanover supervisor’s belief that solar is a means to preserve land from permanent development and even improve soil health and wildlife habitat, but I also understand it may be years before some people see sheep grazing under solar panels as a welcome feature in their landscape. 

So I get how a rural county, having sold a little bit of its soul for $1.8 billion, might then slam the door to other development, even after applicants had worked with the county for months in good faith and done everything asked for. 

It’s not a choice I’d make – I’d take solar over data centers every time – but then, no one made it the county’s responsibility to contribute electricity to the grid that serves it, much less to produce the electricity needed to run the data centers it embraced.

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and X.

“We agreed that the leadership churn at PG&E was not serving our coworkers or our customers, and stability was a priority,” she said in a video posted to her LinkedIn.

Poppe joined PG&E as CEO in January 2021, after five years as President and CEO of CMS Energy and its principal subsidiary Consumers Energy. In her decade-long career with the Michigan company, she also served as Senior Vice President of Distribution Operations, Engineering and Transmission; Vice President of Customer Experience, Rates and Regulation; and Vice President of Customer Operations. She previously served as a power plant director at DTE Energy. Prior to joining DTE Energy, Poppe held a variety of plant management positions in the automotive industry.

Dominion Energy announced that Diane Leopold, the utility’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, would retire on June 1, 2025. Prior to June she will transfer utility and contracted energy responsibilities to Ed Baine, currently president of Dominion Energy Virginia, who will become president-utility operations and Dominion Energy Virginia; and Eric Carr, currently chief nuclear officer, who will become chief nuclear officer and president-nuclear operations and Contracted Energy. Leopold will retain operational oversight of all major construction projects including the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project (CVOW). She has spent the last 30 years at Dominion Energy.

John Thomas, Tennessee Valley Authority’s executive vice president and chief financial and strategy officer, has announced his plans to retire on March 7, 2025, after nearly 20 years of service. Thomas has been with TVA since 2005, leading its financial and strategic direction for nearly two decades. He oversees the utility’s strategy, financial planning, treasury, risk management, innovation and more. Thomas also oversees the pursuit of emerging technologies like battery storage.

The Ontario Power Generation (OPG) Board of Directors recently appointed Nicolle Butcher as President and CEO effective Jan. 1, 2025. She replaces current President and CEO Ken Hartwick, who is retiring after nearly nine years with the company. Butcher is currently OPG’s Chief Operations Officer, overseeing the crown utility’s generating fleet. She has also led company’s corporate business growth and development and commercial business functions, including energy trading and market affairs.