Virginia's Energy Plan

 Read more from Virginia Energy Sense at 
https://www.virginiaenergysense.org/

Virginia‘s Energy Plan

Virginia’s energy strategy follows an “all of the above” approach that uses nuclear, natural gas, renewable, and new energy sources to fulfill the Commonwealth’s energy needs. 

The Commonwealth’s 2022 Energy Plan recognizes the following five principles as part of ensuring energy access for all Virginians: 

1. Reliability. Ensure that Virginians have access to energy when and where they need it by preserving the reliability of Virginia’s electric grid. 
2. Affordability. Keep energy affordable and protect Virginians from rising energy prices. 
3. Innovation. Bring the Commonwealth to the forefront of energy innovation by embracing and incorporating new renewable energy technologies. 
4. Competition. Provide Virginians with more choices in where their energy comes from. 
5. Environmental stewardship. Improve the quality of Virginia’s environment and protect the Commonwealth’s natural resources. 

Where Your Power Comes From

Do you know where your electricity comes from? In Virginia, electricity is generated from a variety of energy sources, including nuclear, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, renewable, petroleum, and other sources. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, most of Virginia’s electricity is generated from natural gas (57%), nuclear (30%), and renewable (9%) sources. The remainder (4%) comes from coal.

 

Where Virginians Use the Most Energy

• Heating and cooling. This typically constitutes the largest share of energy usage in homes and workplaces.
• Appliances. Refrigerators, dishwashers, and dryers together account for about 20% of all energy used in homes.
• Water heating. This accounts for about 20% of home energy usage.
• Lighting. Lighting represents the largest share of energy usage in the commercial sector and approximately 15% of the average home’s electricity usage.
• Electronics. Demand in this area is increasing because of advanced computer equipment, more sophisticated televisions and streaming devices, and more.

Virginia’s transportation sector consumes the most energy in the state (30.5% of total usage), followed by the commercial sector (26.8%), residential sector (24.2%), and industrial sector (18.5%).

For more information on the Commonwealth’s energy consumption, see the Energy Information Administration’s Virginia profile.

Demand Response Programs

Rising peak demand can strain the electricity system and potentially hurt the power grid’s reliability. Some energy providers have implemented demand response programs, which give commercial and residential

Making decisions about Backup energy storage - Aurora Solar

By Jon Franke, Aurora Content Marketing Manager

October 27th, 2025

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How to size your home battery backup for outages, solar integration, and energy resilience. 

If you’re facing increasing grid instability or trying to establish more energy independence, you may be asking yourself, “How much battery backup do I need for my house?” 

Power outages caused by extreme weather, aging infrastructure, and rolling blackouts have left homes more vulnerable, prompting homeowners to pair storage with rooftop solar or install a home battery without solar for reliable backup power and lower utility bills. In fact, U.S. home battery storage grew 64% in 2024 alone, with about half a million households now equipped to store their own electricity for use during outages or peak-rate hours.

Drawing on both industry research and real-world project data, here are some tips on how to estimate your essential daily energy needs, choose a battery size that matches your outage tolerance, understand how solar panels and storage go together, and compare options tailored for homes in both the U.S. and Canada.

In this article:

• What is a home battery backup system?
• How to determine your home’s backup battery needs
• How to calculate the right battery size for your needs
• How solar panels affect battery backup sizing
• Choosing the Home Battery That’s Right for You
• Frequently Asked Questions

What is a home battery backup system? 

A home battery backup system stores electricity for later use so you can use it when the grid goes down or when utility rates are at their highest. As we mentioned above, battery backups are becoming more common as homeowners look for ways to protect themselves from outages and rising energy costs. They also help navigate changes to net metering policies, such as California’s NEM 3.0, which has lowered

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AI, Data Centers, and Energy Demand

 

Data Center 101

August 14, 2025

There are over 300 data centers in Virginia right now, with 241 of them concentrated in Northern VA, and new centers are proposed or approved every day. Loudoun County alone has 117 in the pipeline. It’s little wonder why – the Commonwealth boasts over $9 billion in tax revenue from the data center industry alone. As an economic driver, that is completely unmatched. Legislators and other decision-makers rely on that income for local and statewide endeavors.

As an environmental and energy factor? Not so good. IEA forecasts that energy demand will double by 2030. “In the United States, power consumption by data centers is on course to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030. Driven by AI use, the US economy is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminum, steel, cement and chemicals.”

What does that mean for Virginia, though? Data centers have been hailed as economic drivers, scorned for being environmentally damaging, and feared for their effects on the electric grid. The General Assembly has been slow to move on legislation to regulate the industry, leaving it open to runaway growth.

What is a data center?
Great question. The International Energy Conservation Code defines a data center as, “a room or series of rooms that share data center systems (later defined as HVAC systems and equipment used to provide cooling or ventilation), whose primary function is to house equipment for the processing and storage of data and that has a design total information technology equipment (ITE) equipment density exceeding 20 watts per square foot of conditioned area and a total design ITE equipment load greater than 10 kW.”

The Code of Virginia defines a data center as, “a facility whose primary services are the storage, management, and processing of digital data and is used to house (i) computer and network systems, including associated components such as servers, network equipment and appliances, telecommunications, and data storage systems; (ii) systems for monitoring and managing infrastructure performance; (iii) equipment used for the transformation, transmission, distribution, or management of at least one megawatt of capacity of electrical power and cooling, including substations, uninterruptible power supply systems, all electrical plant equipment, and associated air handlers; (iv) Internet-related equipment and services; (v) data communications connections; (vi) environmental controls; (vii) fire protection systems; and (viii) security systems and services.”

And the American Council for an Energy Efficiency Economy (ACEEE) states, “data center is a general term that can refer to a range of facilities housing computer servers and networking equipment with very different power and market characteristics.”

The lack of clarity on what a data center is, makes regulating and legislating the industry incredibly difficult. Moreover, as ACEEE notes, there is no one-size-fits-all definition for the different types of data centers. The server room for the City of Richmond operates very differently than the enterprise scale center for Bank of America, which is itself different from a company like Amazon or Microsoft.

AI and Energy
The AI industry, and by extension crypto, relies on computing equipment that uses exponentially more energy and water than a traditional data center. Vox recently reported that a typical Google search uses .3 watt-hours, while ChatGPT uses over nine times as much energy at 2.9 watt-hours. And while there are strides being made to improve chip efficiency and cooling efficiency, the risk of downtime keeps many of these technologies from widespread use.

There are additional uncertainties tied also to speed of adoption, ongoing legislative and legal battles, and effects on the economy. However, all of the projections and models are based on currently available technologies, which are changing rapidly. AI companies are in a period of explosive growth, but that is not sustainable long term. As technology moves from experimentation to market saturation, standardization will ultimately lower the energy spikes we see now.

There’s also the DeepSeek curveball to consider – by using older models of Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) and an optimized algorithm, the Chinese company released R1, a rival to ChatGPT and other commercial AI products, that uses as little as 10% of the electricity for the same output. This also reduced the cost of operations for DeepSeek, while providing a

Offshore Wind Turbine Prices/ Cost-Benefit

 Are Wind Turbines Worth the Investment?: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Wind Turbines

Hannah Burkhardt, Virginia Tech

Among alternative energy strategies, wind energy evokes some of the most contradictory public opinion. Some concerns include interrupted scenic views, the potential for noise, impacts on wildlife, burdens on the community, or the cost. Decision-makers must consider how their constituents and future consumers will feel. In this article, I want to focus on the latter topic of that list: the cost-benefit analysis of wind energy. I will explore current costs regarding construction, consumer costs, and more, along with their benefits to local communities. 

                   

Before we begin, let’s investigate some essential vocabulary in how power or energy is measured in kilowatts (kW or 1000 Watts), megawatts (MW or 1 million Watts), and gigawatt (GW or 1 billion Watts). Figure 1. provides a useful representation of energy sources.

Figure 1. Units of energy and everyday examples

Currently, the industry is at a strange point where vast amounts of turbines are being decommissioned. This is due to the massive push made roughly twenty years for more renewable energy, which causes a lot of wind turbines to be installed. While finding an unbiased statistic for removal was difficult, Xcel Energy offered an estimate similar to other findings. They claim it would take $532,000 to fully decommission each of their land-based wind turbines, though they maintain that this is conservative (TMR),

Hannah Burkhardt: Offshore Wind Turbines

Offshore Wind Turbines: What are the Advantages and Disadvantages?

    The harnessing of wind power dates back to the earliest of sailboats, but how are we using it now? Wind turbines have been our most recent innovation towards renewable energy, specifically wind energy. A wind turbine is a set of blades attached to an extended base that turns the motion of the turning blades into usable energy by using natural wind (EERE). Currently, there are many shapes, sizes, types, and configurations of wind turbines, but one of the recent developments has been offshore wind farms.

    An offshore wind farm, or collection of wind turbines, is anchored in a body of water off the shoreline where winds are reliable and wind speeds are faster. The depths of where they are placed can vary, but generally, the deeper you go, the stronger the wind. Stronger winds and more energy aside, there are concerns about what they could mean for the environment. We'll explore these concerns and a possible solution.

Animal Impact

    Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of wind turbines is their effect on the wildlife around them, birds especially. Since the introduction of wind turbines, bird deaths have increased. An example of this can be found in a Belgian study when the wind turbines were new. The lower turbines tended to be deadlier since 14,000 bird deaths were reported for heights 0-15 meters. That data is consistent with onshore numbers (Everaert et al. 3350). Understandably, it is crucial to understand how many birds are affected and why. Having wind turbines offshore increases the chance that many bird deaths could go unreported due to the differing environment (Brey).

    As for aquatic life, the concerns are regarding added boat traffic and the extra noises and vibrations. As for any mechanism, repairs, and maintenance are expected. Unlike other wind turbines, offshore means that the only effective way to access them is by boat. Also known as vessel traffic, frequent ships in one area can be detrimental to wildlife, and the

Climate Education Modules and Resources

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• Upon completion of the Teacher Modules, you receive access to our nine Learning Lab Modules: Renewable Energy, Invasive Species, Sea Level Rise, Floods & Droughts, Wildfires, Climate Impacts & Solutions with En-ROADS, Climate Justice & Equity, Agriculture & Climate Change, and Civics Climate Action. These modules include week-by-week lesson plans, resources and student activity guides.