New gas plant sought to power planned Remington data centers

Developers of an approved but not yet built data center near Remington are asking Fauquier County officials to let them build a gas-turbine power plant to run it.

The owners of Remington Technology Park, a six-building data center complex planned for 234 acres on Lucky Hill Road, are taking the step because they are worried about slow delivery of electricity from Dominion Energy.

The gas plant is necessary, Remington Technology Park Limited Partnership LLP said in its request, “because Dominion Energy has recently changed how they plan to deliver phases of electric power capacity required for each data center building.”

A plan provided by the developer shows a “turbine mechanical equipment yard” about 300 feet by 500 feet with 13 gas turbine generators, each 100 feet long, lined up, side-by-side, next to data center buildings. The yard would be just south of an on-site substation, which would get its power from high-voltage power lines that run overhead.

The gas plant would power the buildings as they come online but would shut down once Dominion fully delivered its requested electricity, according to a note sent to the county supervisors Oct. 15 by chief county planner Adam Shellenberger.

The property was rezoned in 2018 to allow data centers, and its site plan with six buildings of 1.8 million square feet was approved in 2020. The technology park is applying to amend its rezoning agreement because its original plans did not contain the gas-turbine plant.

The proposal comes as data centers are testing the limits of the regional power grid, and utilities and the grid operator are scrambling to find ways to deal with the load. One approach being used by Dominion is to deliver power to data centers in increments, as most data centers don’t need all their requested power right away. It started that practice in Loudoun County in 2022 but has since expanded the strategy to other areas.

The gas-turbine plant is the first private power-generating facility proposed in Fauquier County, Shellenberger said in a reply to questions from a coalition of citizens groups concerned about the plant’s emissions, noise and operating hours.

But it would not be the first natural gas power plant in the county. Dominion operates a 614-megawatt plant about a half-mile north of the technology park site, and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative operates a 504-megawatt gas peaking plant about a mile to the south. Both feed power to the grid.  

Dominion Energy spokesman Aaron Ruby said in an email that he was not familiar with the details of powering this site, “but we’ve been delivering phased power to some of the larger data center developments for some time, not just in Loudoun.”

Dominion planned to phase in power for the nearby Gigaland data center project — which is now on hold — over three years, from 25 megawatts in 2026, to 50 megawatts in 2027, to 75 megawatts in 2028, according to documents.

The utility has also told data centers in Northern Virginia that their hookup will take four to seven years, partly because of continuing infrastructure work and partly because Dominion wants to see where data center clusters will locate.

Consideration of the proposed gas plant is months away. The planning commission could review the proposal early next year. A public hearing before the board of supervisors would follow.

Shellenberger said there was nothing obvious in Fauquier County’s codes that would block a gas generating plant from being built. But in the end, it would be up to the board of supervisors.