Transmission lines stand above a multi-use path adjacent to homes in rural Virginia. (Photo by Charles Paullin/Inside Climate News)
Bren Pointe residents in Fairfax County are closer to seeing steel transmission towers rise just outside their townhomes after Virginia’s regulators approved a new electricity line to serve a single planned commercial data center.
On Aug. 8, the State Corporation Commission (SCC), which regulates Virginia’s utilities, approved Dominion Energy’s request to erect the “Edsall Substation,” a short walk from the Bren Pointe community in Alexandria. The project includes eight 120-foot towers and 230-kilovolt charged cables to serve a lone 176-megawatt hyperscale data center in Northern Virginia.
Dominion mapping shows the substation as 100 feet—about the length of a basketball court—from Bren Pointe residents. The Bren Pointe Homeowners Association contends the towers and station will be 60 feet from some homes.
The developer of the data center is Starwood Capital, a private investment firm located in Miami. The data center is planned as a two-story 460,000-square-foot complex.
“The Commission finds that the public convenience and necessity requires the construction of the Project,” the three commissioners wrote in their decision. Dominion’s proposal aims for the Edsall project to be built by October 2027. The SCC held three hearings and received dozens of written comments, many critical of the project, since December 2024.
The proposed substation now will be reviewed by Fairfax County as part of its land use oversight process, expected to conclude between July 2026 and February 2027. In Virginia, the costs for infrastructure improvements from utilities are all recovered from ratepayers. The Fairfax County project, one of about 200 transmission projects that Dominion plans over the next 15 years, is estimated to cost about $23 million.
The Edsall proposal drew attention from policymakers as a chapter in the nationwide saga on the development of data centers, the warehouse-like facilities that shelter artificial intelligence and internet computer processors. Virginia is home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world, and industry demand for electricity is forecast to triple through 2040, barring constraints or delays to build new transmission lines, according to a state research commission that advises regulators.
The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) issued a report in December 2024 about the data industry’s development—about the same time that the data center near Bren Pointe moved ahead. The data center proposal was in line with existing zoning ordinances at the time and did not require public hearings or planning commission review. The county has since instituted stricter ordinances and reviews.
Overall, the JLARC report found, “the data center industry is estimated to contribute 74,000 jobs, $5.5 billion in labor income, and $9.1 billion in GDP to Virginia’s economy annually.” It also raised some concerns that “data centers’ increased energy demand will likely increase system costs for all customers, including non-data center customers.” The report also found that the “industrial scale of data centers makes them largely incompatible with residential uses.”
Notably, the report provided a map of the proposed data center in Fairfax County and specifically said the planned center was “too close” to the residential area known as Bren Mar. The Bren Pointe community is part of the Bren Mar neighborhood.
Residents of Bren Pointe pointed to the JLARC’s report to bolster their efforts to stop the Edsall substation.
Residents said they were dismayed by the SCC decision. In public hearings and written submissions, they said the transmission lines and substation were closer to their homes than Dominion had admitted and that electricity demand from the proposed data center would likely increase their home electric bills. Bren Pointe, with about 100 townhomes, is located near Alexandria’s Old Town as well as Reagan National Airport.
Homeowners also asked in their pleadings: Who would pay for upgrades to the grid? Who should bear the cost of increasing electricity demands from the center?
“In our mind, it makes it even more important for the General Assembly of Virginia to really take action,” Tyler Ray, president of the Bren Pointe Homeowners Association, which includes residents of the community west of Landmark Mall and off of Edsall Road, said in an interview. “It’s clear under the current statute that residents are at risk.”
Ray said he wants the county to deny the land use request as not being consistent with the locality’s comprehensive plan.
Ray’s group argued Dominion could adjust its plan with alternatives including, broader use of the existing Van Dorn power substation in Fairfax County or constructing the high-powered cables underground. Dominion rejected the homeowners’ proposal as costly.
The homeowners’ association also raised a legal point over potential rate hikes: it said that a provision in the state code that obligates a utility’s “duty to serve” shouldn’t outweigh harm to residents in this case. That duty, Ray said, comes with a need for “reasonable and just rates to any person,” and should not be interpreted to allow a rate adjustment for a community that does not need the transmission line and is certain to see electricity grid demands rise.
Any enterprise that wants a new transmission line should take on the costs for grid upgrades, Ray said, because that would help to mitigate the harm to residents.
The commission rejected Ray’s arguments. The case was about a request for a transmission line, the commission ordered, and “the project as approved herein meets the statutory standards.” The commission added that the case was not about “the duty to serve.”
The commission said it was not the proper venue, with this particular Dominion proposal, for a review of cost allocations. However, Commissioner Kelsey Bagot, in a separate statement within the SCC decision, noted that she wanted to address that “800-pound gorilla” question of “who pays?”
“I believe the time is ripe for a thorough examination of the prevailing approach to transmission cost allocation,” Bagot said. Bagot agreed with SCC’s decision to approve the Edsall substation.
Dominion, which provides electricity to 3.6 million homes and businesses in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, faces a separate broader rate review with regulators that seeks to assign more costs to the data center industry. The SCC has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 2.
The SCC recently approved a $2.10 monthly bill increase for Dominion customers to cover existing and new transmission services, and upgrades through the regional grid operator PJM Interconnection.
New transmission infrastructure can improve reliability and help to add renewable energy sources to the grid by allowing more hookups in circuit areas.
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has repeatedly vetoed clean energy policy while supporting data center development over siting protections, said last week that clean technology “puts a strain” on the grid. He also said that upgrade needs are “not just driven by data centers.”
“The data center community has said loud and clear, ‘We will pay our way,’” Youngkin said, responding to questions after an unrelated budget presentation in Richmond. “They are willing to pay for the transmission extensions, they are willing to pay for the power generation footprint,” and have their own power generation for use.
Critics of the data center industry have raised concerns about rising commercial demands and the effect that data center growth will have on communities.
Over the past couple of months, Amazon withdrew a proposal for data centers near one of Dominion’s traditional nuclear plants in Louisa County in Central Virginia, and a judge revoked the rezoning of land for the Prince William Digital Gateway, a planned development that would have created 37 data centers on 1,700 acres near Manassas National Battlefield Park.
Prince William County Circuit Court Judge Kimberly Irving ruled earlier this month in favor of the Oak Valley Homeowners’ Association and other homeowners and found that the Prince William Board of County Supervisors’ decision to rezone the acreage was “void” because the board failed to comply with state and local notice requirements.
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Author: Charlie Paullin
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