Virginia County With 37 Data Centers Asks Its Schools to Conserve Electricity

Henrico County, Virginia, is asking its own workforce to cut electricity use after learning that the power bill for its government buildings and schools is about to jump by a quarter. On June 26, County Manager John Vithoulkas emailed thousands of county employees asking them to help conserve energy, according to a copy of the message obtained by 404 Media.

“Beginning July 1st, the rate we pay for electricity used in all Henrico County government and school facilities will increase dramatically — by 25%, increasing costs by an estimated $5 million next fiscal year. We anticipate more rate increases for electricity in the years ahead,” the email said.

A county with 37 data centers, and 17 more planned

Henrico is a community of more than 350,000 people in eastern Virginia, just outside Richmond. It is also one of the densest data center clusters on the East Coast: 37 facilities operate there today, and county plans call for 17 more. Proximity to Washington, D.C., and large tracts of available land turned the county into a data center hub in a few years; Meta built a data center there in 2017.

Some of the pending projects have drawn local opposition. A QTS expansion near White Oak Technology Park would add 17 new data center buildings, a project that county officials said could eventually include more than 300 diesel-powered emergency generators and 11 cooling towers. At a community meeting in May, Varina residents pressed officials on power bills, water consumption and air quality. Plans to convert hundreds of acres of Civil War battlefields into data centers are also in play.

Turn off the lights, unplug the chargers

The measures Vithoulkas asked for are deliberately small: switch off lights when leaving a workspace, shut down computers and laptops at the end of the workday, adjust blinds to limit heat from sunlight, unplug appliances and chargers that are not in use, and avoid space heaters. A typical space heater alone can cost the county between $150 and $300 a year in electricity, the email said.

“Each dollar we can save by conserving electricity is another dollar the county can reinvest into staff and the services we provide our residents,” Vithoulkas wrote.

Why it matters

The exchange captures a wider tension in Virginia, where rapid data center growth has put pressure on the state's power infrastructure. Even a county that hosts dozens of server farms is now asking teachers and office staff to compensate for rising rates at the margins — and warning that this increase will not be the last.