Thousands of residents in Prince William and Stafford counties are without power as Dominion Energy and Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC) report widespread outages amid a high wind warning.
As of Sunday evening, Dominion Energy has reported 7,496 outages in Prince William County and 8,363 outages in Stafford County. NOVEC has also reported power disruptions, with 3,322 customers affected in Prince William County and 1,031 in Stafford County.
Once thought to be on its way out, Dominion Energy’s Possum Point Power Station near Dumfries is now expanding operations to meet rising data center power demands, Insidenova.com reports.
The 75-year-old facility currently burns natural gas and diesel fuel, generating around 660 megawatts of energy, which powers about 170,000 homes.
The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission released its long awaited report on data centers Monday, detailing the expected soaring energy demands and large economic benefits of the industry ahead of the 2025 General Assembly session.
Amazon Web Services has signed three new agreements to develop nuclear power projects for energizing its massive data centers, including one with Virginia’s Dominion Energy.
A powerful line of thunderstorms swept through Northern Virginia on August 3, 2024, causing significant power outages across Prince William and Stafford counties. The severe weather left many residents in the dark as utility companies scrambled to restore service.
Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC) Outages
Residents of Prince William Estates in Dumfries have been experiencing a power outage since early this morning, affecting 111 customers in the neighborhood in Dumfries.
According to Dominion Energy, the outage was caused by a fallen tree that broke two utility poles.
Local activists and officials are joining hands to oppose Dominion Energy’s efforts to build a new substation and transmission lines near Gainesville to fuel data centers
Bay Journal: “The effect of coal ash on the environment has been studied and debated for more than seven years now in Virginia. Utilities have spent those years looking for long-term disposal solutions for huge volumes of the industrial waste product, much of it located near major rivers.”
“Frankel and his team studied surface water, sediment, species diversity and fish tissue from Quantico Creek, which runs into the Potomac River next to the Possum Point Power Station in Dumfries. They found elevated concentrations of several trace metals in the sediment and in the muscle tissues of banded killifish, which are food for striped bass, birds and other predators. The researchers also found reduced species diversity in the stretch of Quantico Creek closest to the power station, compared with samples taken at upstream and downstream locations.”
