Several bills moving through the General Assembly could have an impact on data centers in Virginia.
More than a dozen bills introduced during the current General Assembly session address data centers. Among them are HB1515, HB155 and SB94.
House Bill 1515, introduced by Delegate Irene Shin who represents the 8th District, would place a temporary moratorium on the local approval of data centers. It would prohibit the “final approval of any application for a rezoning, special exception, special use permit, site plan or plan of development for the siting of a new data center by a locality until the earlier of the fulfillment of all pending requests for interconnection to distribution service by an electric utility customer that is a data center or July 1, 2028.”
The bill was introduced on Friday and has been referred to the committee on House Rules.
Along those same lines, HB155 was introduced Jan. 6 by Delegate Joshua Thomas who represents the 21st District. The bill would prohibit anyone from operating a facility whose electricity demand exceeds 25 megawatts without first having obtained a certificate of operation from the State Corporation Commission. Facilities in operation before July 1, 2026 would not be impacted. The bill includes factors for the SCC to consider in reviewing a petition to operate a high-load facility. The bill presumes the facility would have met requirements by securing sufficient contracts for energy storage resources or zero-carbon electric generating resources or has a plan to implement sufficient demand reduction measures. The bill also requires the SCC to determine if there is sufficient energy, capacity and grid infrastructure to support the operation of the high-load facility and whether the operation would create an unreasonable cross-subsidy among customers served by the incumbent electric utility. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Labor and Finance. On Jan. 15, it was assigned to a subcommittee.
Senate Bill 94 has gotten the most attention thus far. Introduced by Senator Danica Roem, who represents the 30th District, the bill would restrict data center approval by localities to only parcels zoned for industrial use or used for such purposes. The bill would only apply to applications submitted on or after July 1, 2026. The bill was introduced Dec. 31 and referred to the Senate committee on local government. It was amended and referred to the finance and appropriations committee on a 8-5 vote with one abstention.
The committee amendment would allow a local government to approve a land use application on a parcel of land that isn’t zoned for industrial use if the application was for a new facility and not the expansion of an existing data center, the development is part of a larger development of adjacent parcels and the applicant has entered into a shared energy connection agreement with adjacent parcels.
The Piedmont Environmental Council has voiced its support for both HB1515 and HB155. The council states that by requiring a temporary moratorium on local data center approvals, the bill would provide a critically needed pause to allow infrastructure to catch up. Combined with additional oversight and transparency, the bill would bring “transformational data center reform to what has become a dangerous chaotic situation.” HB155 would then allow for proper planning “and bring discipline to what has been a haphazard approach.”
