What the Hell is a Gigawatt?

Virginia’s AI Data Center Problem and Its Cost to You

Nathan Howard/Getty Images

There is currently an infestation in Virginia. Its growth spans thousands of acres across our Commonwealth, consuming land, draining water, polluting air, and devouring electricity. It zaps enormous amounts of energy every day — and sends Virginians’ power bills through the roof.

I am — of course — talking about data centers.

There are nearly 700 data centers already operating in Virginia, with almost 600 more in the planning stages. Together, they consume as much electricity as roughly 70 million homes. About 35% of the world’s data centers are now located right here in our state, meaning much of the country’s internet runs through Northern Virginia.

With proximity to Washington, D.C., major fiber networks, abundant energy, and generous tax incentives, Virginia has become the ideal location for tech giants like Amazon Web Services and Google. Western Fairfax County and Eastern Loudoun County — now known as “Data Center Alley” — are ground zero.

But are Virginians getting the same benefits in return?

Are we giving away land, water, clean air, and affordable electricity for pennies on the dollar? And what unintended consequences are already hitting families across the Commonwealth?

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Almost a decade ago, Virginia’s legislature opened the doors to this development as they raced to be the “best state for business.” But in doing so, they never accounted for the reality of today’s world — one where Artificial Intelligence, streaming, cloud storage, and constant digital consumption require more and more data every single day.

Now lawmakers in Virginia — and across the country — are being actively undermined by the Trump Administration, which has promised Tech Billionaire Bros like Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, and Altman that the safety rails are coming off.

Trump’s early Executive Order aimed at blocking limits on AI development made clear that federal action would supersede any state regulation. And while it’s “just” an EO for now, there’s already a bill from Republican Congressman Michael Baumgartner (WA-5) to codify it into law — meaning a congressman from Washington state could soon be dictating what Virginia does with its land while every major tech company races to build on it.

Number of Data Centers by Region | datacentermap.com

Aerial View of all Data Centers in Ashburn, VA | datacentermap.com

What most people still don’t realize is that the “internet” and the “cloud” are not some ethereal energy floating around in the sky.

Every single thing you do online requires a physical place to live.

Every email, every Google search, every TikTok, every AI prompt, every image, every video — even the words you are reading on this page right now — exist on servers stored in massive warehouse-sized data centers somewhere in America.

As public use grows, more storage is needed.

As AI grows, exponentially more computing power is needed.

And that means more data centers.

Those data centers need two things to function: electricity and water.

Traditional facilities average around 20 to 100 megawatts (MW). But the new AI-driven hyperscale centers are climbing to — and sometimes exceeding — 1,000 megawatts.

That’s one gigawatt.

Enough to power a small city.

And the water use is just as staggering.

A single 1 MW facility uses roughly 6.7 (don’t say it) million gallons of water per year for cooling. If everything scales evenly, a 1 GW facility can consume more than 6.7 (seriously don’t) billion gallons annually.

To put that into perspective, global projections estimate that AI-related water consumption could reach 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters per year by 2027 — not for one building, but across the entire sector.

Now I know what you’re thinking:

“I barely use it.”

“I only made a funny image once.”

“It just helps me with emails.”

“It’s easier than Googling.”

“It’s so nice to me.”

First off, stop it. Get some help.

Second, even light, casual AI use has a real resource cost.

A single ChatGPT query uses roughly 0.3 to 0.34 watt-hours of electricity — about ten times the energy of a Google search.

A 100-word prompt can consume around half a liter of water just for cooling.

Generating one AI image can use up to a bottle of water and enough electricity to run lights for over an hour.

A five-second AI video can use nearly one kilowatt-hour of electricity and about a gallon of water.

So those silly AI clips, those quick prompts, those “just for fun” images?

They’re burning through electricity and water faster than you can refresh your feed.

And when millions of people do it every day, it adds up to entire power plants and reservoirs worth of demand.

And you know who bears the brunt of that cost? You do.

The Financial Costs

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centers in Virginia is not just some abstract infrastructure issue — it is already driving up energy demand and showing up directly on your electric bill.

Nationally, data center growth is projected to contribute to roughly an 8% increase in average U.S. electricity rates by 2030. But that figure hides just how concentrated the damage is in places like Northern Virginia, where the majority of this development is happening.

In the PJM regional power grid — which serves Virginia and much of the Mid-Atlantic — data centers were responsible for 63% of the entire $9.3 billion increase in capacity costs in the 2025–2026 auction alone. That’s not households. That’s not small businesses. That’s overwhelmingly data centers driving the spike.

Wholesale electricity costs in areas near major data center clusters are now 267% higher than they were just five years ago.

And yet, while your bill has steadily climbed — rising about 25% between 2020 and 2024 — these same massive facilities were able to plug into the grid at deeply discounted industrial rates, often with little transparency and minimal regulatory oversight.

For Virginians, the consequences are already locked in.

To keep up with the exploding demand, Dominion Energy has approved a 2026 rate hike that will add about $16 per month to the average residential customer’s bill for the next two years — roughly a 10% increase right out of the gate.

But that’s only the beginning.

A 2024 JLARC study found that a typical Dominion customer could see generation and transmission costs increase by an additional $14 to $37 per month by 2040 (in real dollars, not even counting inflation).

To put that into normal human language:

If you live in Virginia, your electric bill is going to keep rising — year after year — largely to subsidize the power appetite of massive data centers you never voted for and never approved.

Even if you never use AI.

Even if you hate tech.

Even if you’re trying to conserve energy.

You’re still paying for it.

The Environmental Costs

Data centers aren’t just draining our wallets — they’re draining our natural resources.

One of the biggest myths pushed by data center developers is that water usage is a “closed loop.” They’ll tell you they pull water for cooling and simply return it to municipal wastewater systems.

That’s not how it works.

Roughly 80% of the water used by data centers evaporates during cooling. Only about 20% ever return to local treatment facilities. Once that water is pulled from rivers and reservoirs, most of it is effectively gone.

So while companies frame their usage as temporary, the reality is that data centers permanently deplete local water supplies — in a state already facing growing drought risks and population pressure.

And the environmental damage doesn’t stop there.

Data centers dramatically increase electricity demand, and in the U.S., about 56% of our power grid still runs on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. To keep up with exploding energy needs, utilities like Dominion Energy are already proposing new gas-fired power plants across Virginia.

More data centers mean more fossil fuel infrastructure.
More fossil fuel infrastructure means more emissions.

And those power plants consume massive amounts of water too.

A federal report estimated that the indirect water footprint from electricity used by data centers totaled roughly 211 billion gallons in 2023 alone. That works out to about 1.2 gallons of water per kilowatt-hour of electricity.

As data centers are projected to consume up to 1,050 terawatt-hours annually by 2030, that water use will skyrocket right alongside emissions.

But it gets worse.

The enormous wastewater volumes produced by these facilities can overwhelm local treatment plants that were never designed to handle industrial-scale discharge. In some cases, this overload backs up into waterways — polluting rivers and potentially contaminating local drinking water supplies.

Then there’s the air.

We’re already seeing what happens when AI-scale power demand is allowed to run unchecked.

In Memphis, Tennessee, Elon Musk’s xAI “Colossus” supercomputer facility — built to train his AI chatbot Grok (you know? the one that’s been generating nonconsensual explicit images of women and minors on X) — is powered by 33 methane gas turbines running nonstop.

Stephen Voss/Redux

Those turbines pump nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde into surrounding neighborhoods 24/7.

The result?

Smog levels around the facility jumped nearly 60%.

Peak nitrogen dioxide concentrations increased by 79%.

This single AI complex now produces more nitrogen oxides than the county’s chemical plant, oil refinery, power station, and international airport combined.

And the community paying the price is Boxtown — a historically Black neighborhood now experiencing some of the highest asthma-related hospital visits in Tennessee.

One resident stood up at a health department hearing in tears and asked:

“I can’t breathe at home. It smells like gas outside. How come I can’t breathe at home and y’all get to breathe at home?”

That is the future we’re inviting into Virginia.

And air and water aren’t the only concerns.

There’s a more invisible pollutant too.pollutant too. As the Grinch put, “Oh the noise. Noise. Noise.”

Data centers operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their diesel generators and HVAC systems produce constant low-frequency humming — with internal noise levels reaching up to 96 decibels, well above the threshold known to damage hearing.

People living nearby report:

• chronic headaches
• sleep disruption
• anxiety and stress
• cardiovascular risks
• tinnitus and hearing loss

And these facilities aren’t tucked away in industrial wastelands.

They’re built across from neighborhoods.
Next to schools
Beside apartment complexes.
And — in the case of my own grandparents in Loudoun County — next to nursing homes.

We still don’t even have long-term data on what this level of constant industrial noise does to communities over years.

Yet Virginia continues approving these projects at breakneck speed.

We are inviting massive, resource-intensive, pollution-producing infrastructure into the heart of our communities without fully understanding — or regulating — the consequences.

What Do We Get?

In theory, all of this development is supposed to be worth it because of the tax revenue data centers promise to bring into the Commonwealth.

That’s the sales pitch every time a new facility is proposed: jobs, economic growth, and billions flowing into state and local budgets.

In reality, Virginians have been quietly footing the bill.

Over the past decade, the Youngkin Administration and previous leaders aggressively courted data center developers with massive tax incentives — handing out exemptions on equipment, servers, and software that are the backbone of these facilities.

From FY 2015 through FY 2024, Virginia granted more than $2.7 billion in data center tax exemptions.

That is $2.7 billion in revenue that could have gone to schools, infrastructure, water systems, public health, or lowering energy costs — instead redirected straight into the pockets of some of the richest corporations in the world.

And the giveaways are accelerating.

In FY 2025 alone, Virginia taxpayers lost an estimated $1.6 billion in sales and use tax revenue to data centers — a staggering 118% increase over the previous year.

Let that sink in.

In one year, Virginians lost more in tax revenue than in the previous decade combined.

These exemptions allow data centers to avoid paying taxes on the very equipment that consumes our electricity, drains our water, and strains our infrastructure. And they’re currently set to remain in place until June 30, 2035, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.

That means taxpayers are on the hook for billions more over the next nine years — at minimum.

So when proponents tout “economic development,” it’s worth asking:

Development for who?

Families pay higher electric bills.

Communities absorb pollution and noise.

Local infrastructure takes the hit.

Meanwhile, trillion-dollar tech companies get sweetheart tax deals.

We’re paying once through higher utility costs — and paying again through lost public revenue.

What Can We Do?

To make matters worse, the same tech companies building these massive facilities — and the developers partnering with them — are running aggressive lobbying campaigns in Richmond to keep this system exactly as it is.

Estimates suggest that for every single member of the Virginia General Assembly, there are roughly three data center lobbyists working full-time to protect industry profits.

Three lobbyists for every one person elected to represent you.

And unsurprisingly, many of those lobbyists live as far away from these facilities as possible — while communities across Northern Virginia and beyond deal with the noise, pollution, traffic, and rising utility bills.

But Virginians are not powerless.

There are currently multiple bills moving through the General Assembly aimed at finally putting guardrails on this out-of-control development — not to ban technology, not to push the problem onto rural or Appalachian communities, and not to stall economic progress, but to make data center growth responsible, sustainable, and fair.

Because “best for business” should not mean worst for neighborhoods.

Here are just a few of the measures lawmakers are considering. And you can find your legislator at whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/ to urge them to vote for these:

• HB 153 (Del. Thomas) — Requires sound profile assessments before approving new high-energy-use facilities near homes and schools, forcing developers to measure and mitigate noise impacts instead of ignoring them.

• HB 155 (Del. Thomas) — Prohibits new high-load facilities from operating without state certification, giving regulators real oversight over massive energy consumers plugging into the grid.

• HB 511 (Del. McAuliff) — Pushes localities to rezone data centers as industrial uses, limit proximity to residential areas, strengthen setback and height requirements, require noise modeling, and mandate mitigation commitments from developers.

• HB 591 (Del. Simonds) — Establishes a state policy framework encouraging responsible data center operation while protecting grid reliability, affordability, and renewable deployment.

• HB 615 (Del. Krizek) — Creates a land preservation tax of $3 per square foot on data center footprints, directing hundreds of millions into conservation, land protection, and the Virginia Tribal Commitment Fund.

• SB 467 (Sen. Deeds) — Blocks final approvals for high-load facilities until the State Corporation Commission confirms minimal impact on grid reliability and infrastructure.

These bills represent the beginning of balance — putting communities, affordability, and environmental responsibility back into the equation.

They recognize a simple truth:

Data centers aren’t inherently bad.
Unchecked development is.

Virginia can lead in technology without sacrificing clean air, clean water, affordable power, and livable communities.

But only if lawmakers stand up to an industry that has grown accustomed to getting everything it wants — while everyone else pays the price.

The Bottom Line

Virginia didn’t stumble into this problem by accident.

We made a series of policy choices that prioritized being “business-friendly” over being community-conscious. We handed out massive tax breaks without building guardrails. We invited in some of the most resource-intensive facilities on earth without fully accounting for what they would cost everyday Virginians.

And now we’re paying for it — in higher electric bills, depleted water supplies, polluted air, strained infrastructure, and billions in lost public revenue.

Data centers are not some invisible backend of modern life. They are physical, massive, and incredibly demanding pieces of industrial infrastructure. Treating them like harmless tech offices instead of what they actually are has allowed their impacts to spiral out of control.

None of this means Virginia has to reject innovation or technology. But it does mean we have to stop pretending that unchecked corporate expansion automatically benefits the public.

Growth without responsibility is not progress.

Economic development that privatizes profit and socializes harm is not success.

It’s a subsidy — one paid for by families who never agreed to it.

The good news is that this trajectory isn’t locked in. Lawmakers are finally beginning to confront the real costs of data center development and propose solutions that protect communities, affordability, and our environment.

But those efforts will only succeed if Virginians pay attention, speak up, and demand better.

Because the question isn’t whether data centers will continue to exist in Virginia.

The question is who they will serve.

Mega-corporations chasing profit — or the people who live here.

And right now, it’s time to rebalance that equation.

TL;DR

Virginia has become the world’s data center capital — and everyday Virginians are paying the price.

AI-driven data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and billions of gallons of water, driving up power bills, draining local resources, increasing pollution, and straining infrastructure. While families see rising utility costs, tech giants lock in discounted energy rates and avoid billions in taxes through state giveaways.

The environmental impacts are already showing up in polluted air, depleted waterways, noise pollution, and public health risks — with examples like Memphis offering a warning of what unchecked development can bring.

Meanwhile, Virginia has handed data centers more than $2.7 billion in tax exemptions and continues losing billions more each year in revenue.

Lawmakers are finally proposing guardrails to regulate growth, protect communities, and make these companies pay their fair share — but industry lobbying remains intense.

Bottom line: Data centers aren’t “free economic development.” They’re a massive public subsidy that’s raising your bills, harming communities, and enriching some of the richest corporations in the world — unless Virginia acts now to rein them in.