Internet data centers are fueling a drive to an old power source: Coal

By Antonio Olivo, The Washington PostSolar panels in Charles Town are part of an effort to bring more green energy to the struggling power grid. . - A helicopter hovers over the Gee family farm, the noisy rattle echoing inside their home in this rural part of West Virginia.

“These power lines? They’re not for me and my family. I didn’t vote on this. And the data centers? That’s not in West Virginia. That’s a whole different state.” But PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator, says the plan is necessary to maintain grid reliability amid a wave of fossil fuel plant closures in recent years, prompted by the nation’s transition to cleaner power.

have been multiplying in Northern Virginia since the late 1990s, spreading from the industry’s historic base in Loudoun County to neighboring Prince William County and, recently, across the Potomac River into Maryland. There are nearly 300 data centers now in Virginia. An Amazon Web Services data center, top center, has been built near residential neighborhoods in Manassas, Va. One data center can require 50 times the electricity of a typical office building, according to the U.S.

Dominion is developing a 2,600-megawatt wind farm off Virginia Beach - the largest such project in U.S. waters - and the company recently gained state approval to build four solar projects.Opponents of PJM’s plan say it wouldn’t be necessary if more green energy had been connected to the grid faster, pointing to projects that were caught up in bureaucratic delays for five years or longer before they were connected.

Nearby sits the 502 Junction substation, connected to those plants and a third one about 43 miles away via existing power lines, which will serve as a terminus for a western prong of the PJM plan for new linesA pile of coal is seen at the Longview power station in Maidsville, W.Va., in February. The owner of one of the Morgantown-area plants, Longview LLC, recently emerged from bankruptcy.

After PJM tapped the company to build a 36-mile-long portion of the planned power lines for $392 million, FirstEnergy announced in February that the two plants will continue operating until 2035 and 2040, citing the need for grid reliability.The news has sent FirstEnergy’s stock price up by 4 percent, to about $37 a share this week, and was greeted with jubilation by West Virginia’s coal industry.

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