Documents recently filed with state regulators reveal new information about Appalachian Power’s planned electric grid upgrades to serve Google’s data centers at a Botetourt County business park.
Among various technical details in Appalachian’s Sept. 4 application to the Virginia State Corporation Commission are two numbers that stand out as highlights:
- Appalachian Power estimates that it will cost $264 million to upgrade transmission lines and substations to serve Google’s data center campus at the Botetourt Center at Greenfield business park, and
- Google will have a peak electricity demand of approximately 300 megawatts, a figure that has not previously been made public.
Despite the nine-figure price tag, Appalachian Power says that its other customers won’t foot the bill.
“At a high level, customer rates are based on the cost of providing service and the amount of electricity customers use,” Appalachian Power said in a statement Friday to Cardinal News.
“In this case, the project adds a large new customer load, which is expected to bring in enough additional revenue to cover the cost of the transmission line and substation upgrades. Because the added revenue is expected to offset those costs, other customers are not expected to pay more because of this work,” the company said.
Appalachian Power currently recoups some of its other transmission infrastructure investments by charging its customers nearly $400 million each year through a portion of the monthly bill called the transmission rate adjustment clause, or T-RAC.
Appalachian Power, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, serves about 540,000 customers in western Virginia, of which about 466,000 are residential customers.
In its application to the SCC, Appalachian Power cited the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which the White House announced in March to help protect consumers from rising power costs, when it said other customers wouldn’t pay for the upgrades at the Botetourt County site.
Under the pledge, Google and other tech companies voluntarily agree to pay for “all new power delivery infrastructure upgrades required to service their data centers.”
Google declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson referred a Cardinal News reporter to Appalachian Power’s SCC application.
In May, a Google spokesperson cited the Ratepayer Protection Pledge when telling Cardinal News that the company would pay for the transmission upgrades needed for its data centers.
[Disclosure: Google is one of our donors through its Google News Initiative, which helped support our expansion in the New River Valley. Donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
In a separate SCC filing earlier this summer, Appalachian Power said that it is seeing “explosive and unprecedented” interest from data centers and other potential new large users of electricity.
In its statement to Cardinal News, Appalachian Power said that protecting existing customers from costs driven by large energy users is a top priority.
“As new projects are evaluated, we will look closely at the infrastructure required and the revenue those customers are expected to provide. Our goal is to support economic growth while protecting existing customers from paying costs that should be covered by the customers driving the need for those upgrades,” the company said.
Data centers’ specific power demands are often elusive
In Botetourt County, Google proposes three data center buildings of about 300,000 square feet each, three electric substations, a 28,000-square-foot office building, and associated roads and parking.
The project’s peak power demand of 300 megawatts is a figure that has not previously been publicly disclosed.
Appalachian Power has previously declined to provide it, citing a nondisclosure agreement.
Google also has previously declined to provide it. It has said that its purchase of the output of a 79-megawatt wind power plant in Botetourt County will not offset the energy it uses at its data center complex. That means the data centers would require more than 79 megawatts, but Google has not elaborated beyond that.
For context, assuming an average home uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, 300 megawatts could power about 216,000 average homes.
It’s about 4% of the 7,200-megawatt peak load recorded in February across Appalachian Power’s entire tri-state service area of 1.1 million customers.
A 2024 report by the state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission characterized a “small” data center as requiring 5 to 20 megawatts of power and said a “larger” data center could require “100 or more” megawatts.
Specific power-demand figures for data center proposals can be hard to come by.
Appalachian Power has committed to providing at least 299 megawatts for a Stack Infrastructure project at Pittsylvania County’s Berry Hill megasite, with no restrictions above that figure, but exactly how much electricity the project is expected to use has not been made public.
Power requirements for a data center project planned for Wythe County’s Progress Park have not been made public, although officials have said Appalachian Power has enough available electricity and residents’ rates won’t be impacted.
The developer of a separate data center complex slated for eastern Wythe County has said its project will require at least 1,000 megawatts of power capacity.
Appalachian aims for late 2029 completion
Appalachian Power has said its grid upgrade plan, called the Daleville Area Transmission Improvements Project, will allow it to connect Google to the grid and benefit other customers in the area.
The project involves upgrading nearly 20 miles of transmission line, including converting some 69-kilovolt lines to 138-kilovolt lines to deliver more power.
It also involves building a new electric substation and modifying four others to handle the increased power load.
Appalachian Power said in its application to the SCC that it hopes to have the upgraded equipment in service by Nov. 15, 2029. The SCC regulates public utilities in Virginia and has the authority to approve or reject Appalachian Power’s plan.
In June, Google paid $14 million for 312 acres in the Botetourt Center at Greenfield. It recently received a permit to begin grading work.
The company plans to invest at least $3 billion there, creating at least 150 full-time jobs with a median annual salary of $86,000, according to a performance agreement between Google and the county.
County officials have said they anticipate the project will generate millions of dollars in annual tax revenue.
Energy, water usage remain key concerns
Google’s plan has raised community concerns about cost, tax revenue allocation and environmental impacts, including Google’s potential use of millions of gallons of water per day from the nearby Carvins Cove reservoir.
Botetourt County and Google recently announced on their project website that Google will use air-cooling technology in the first of its three buildings, which they said will reduce the project’s overall water consumption.
The project website states that the decision was “driven by business demand and infrastructure requirements.”
A grassroots opposition group, the Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance, characterized it as “bowing to public pressure over water usage.”
“While the announcement means a theoretical reduction in water usage, the air cooling technology, which is necessary to prevent a data center’s racks of servers from overheating and catching fire, requires significantly more energy,” the group said in a statement.
