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When Virginia lawmakers in April passed a bill directing utilities to offer their large energy customers the opportunity to participate in demand-response programs, it was the latest in state efforts to address strains on the electricity grid.
The law directs Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power, whose service areas cover the highest concentration of data centers in the world, to create demand-response programs for energy customers that have an electric load of 25 MW or more.
The programs are intended to give facilities a way to cut their utility costs by shifting some of their energy use away from the utility during periods of peak load demand to on-site power.
But there’s a catch. Because of federal emission restrictions, facilities with emergency generators can only tap the power from those sources for non-emergency purposes for up to 100 hours a year, and within that limit, there’s a 50-hour cap on use of the power for purposes other than testing and maintenance.
