County With 37 Data Centers Asks Schools To 'Conserve Electricity' (404media.co)
- Reference: 0184210616
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/30/171238/county-with-37-data-centers-asks-schools-to-conserve-electricity
- Source link: https://www.404media.co/henrico-virginia-datacenter-energy-cost-email/
> On June 26, the County Manager of Henrico County, Virginia, John Vithoulkas, sent an email to thousands of county employees [1]asking them to help the local government conserve electricity . "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," a copy of the email obtained by 404 Media said (emphasis his).
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> Henrico County is a community of more than 350,000 people in eastern Virginia just outside of Richmond. It also hosts 37 data centers and there are plans to build 17 more, including plans to convert hundreds of acres of Civil War battlefields into data centers. Thanks to its proximity to DC and vast amounts of land, Henrico County became a data center hub seemingly overnight and its services clients big and small. Meta built a data center there in 2017.
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> "To mitigate the impact of higher electric costs, I am asking that we, collectively, make slight adjustments to conserve electricity across our individual workspaces," Vithoulkas wrote in the email. "Turn off your lights when leaving your workspace, including when you leave for the day. Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday. If your workspace has windows, adjust the blinds to manage heat from sunlight. Unplug any appliances, chargers, or other electrical items when they are not in use. Please limit use of (or refrain altogether from using) space heaters. A typical space heater alone can cost the county from $150 to $300 per year in electricity costs."
"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 email said.
[1] https://www.404media.co/henrico-virginia-datacenter-energy-cost-email/
Not a bright idea (Score:2)
When they get blackouts and/or rolling brownouts, in this weather, there's a lot of people with firearms down there...
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
The majority of those gun nuts are absolute cowards. All they do is pray daily that someone tries to break in so they can finally shoot them. In reality the murder rate is at a record low [1]https://www.npr.org/2026/06/30... [npr.org] and has been declining since the early 1990s.
If the gun nuts and "don't tread on me" crowd actually cared they would be out protesting against the armed secret police who kidnap people into unmarked vehicles. Isn't that what they've been warning about for years, an overreaching federal gov
[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/06/30/nx-s1-5866810/us-murder-rate-record-low-crime-homicide
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
If the gun nuts and "don't tread on me" crowd actually cared they would be out protesting.
They are. Your news agency doesn't cover it. They're protesting against the many losses of liberties. You should join them. Don't wait, just make a sign and get out there.
Re: (Score:2)
Any links you can share?
Re: (Score:1)
They watched Trump try and steal an election and voted him into power again. The performative patriotism, it's for show, it was always for show.
They were ready for a tyrant they had different politics then. A tyrant that says politics I like? "Well, I hadn't considered *I* could be the boot."
That's why it was so easy for MAGA to subsume the Libertarian Party within a decade.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> The majority of those gun nuts are absolute cowards.
Obviously. Sure, there will be some (few) actual enthusiasts, and that is fine. But the rest gets a gun out of fear and that is about the worst reason possible. Realistically and statistically, they are most likely to hur themselves or get their kids hurt (due to incompetent gun storage).
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC, there's a decent link between registered gun ownership and the suicide rate. However, a lot of gun ownership is unregistered, so that's probably not reliable.
Re: (Score:3)
The majority of gun owners are actually responsible people who follow the laws with the firearms they own.
( Compare the number of gun owners / firearms in this Country with gun " crime " and look at the overall percentage )
To those who do not own any firearms or who swing hard left politically, anyone else with a gun or even an
interest in shooting them ( hunting / target / etc ) at all is labeled as a " gun nut ".
" If the gun nuts and "don't tread on me" crowd actually cared they would be out protesting aga
Re: Not a bright idea (Score:3)
The problem with your argument, that smarter people just stay home, is off base. By NOT protesting and showing your legislators you are against what they are doing, you are instead, sending them the signal that it is OK and to keep doing what they are doing. Sure it is âoesaferâ to stay home, but that doesnâ(TM)t make it âoesafeâ for you when some armed, masked, law enforcement officers are gunning for you, because you just happen to be driving near them (like to pick your kids up
Re: (Score:2)
> If the gun nuts and "don't tread on me" crowd actually cared they would be out protesting against the armed secret police who kidnap people into unmarked vehicles.
... and the nationwide public/private surveillance panopticon, and the internet "age-verification" laws, and the slurping up of data-broker output by law enforcement, and the very existence of data brokers, and the proposed requirement to show ID to activate a cell phone, and all the other things that limit the ability of law-abiding citizens to be unknown and mind their business.
I sometimes find myself working in northern Wisconsin. There's a huge population of folks up there who will chase the census tak
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That is not the problem. The problem is that people will die from the heat when AC begins to not be available and even water may become a problem.
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This is what jumped out at me:
> "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,"
Yes, electricity will go up in the future, and yes, a 25% rate increase is a lot, but they are currently paying $20 Million for electricity?
There are 350,000 residents in the county, why are the schools using so much electricity? Let me guess, electric school buses (which means they simply transferred savings on Diesel fuel and turned it into Electricity costs: [1]https://www.henricoschools.us/... [henricoschools.us]
And they installed solar panels: [2]https://citizenportal.ai/artic... [citizenportal.ai]
And STILL they spen
[1] https://www.henricoschools.us/page/alternative-fuels/
[2] https://citizenportal.ai/articles/7884712/virginia/school-districts/henrico-co-pblc-schs/virginia/school-districts/henrico-co-pblc-schs/Virginia/School-Districts/HENRICO-CO-PBLC-SCHS/Henrico-reports-346-MW-of-solar-thousands-of-trees-planted-and-new-propaneelectric-buses
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>> Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday.
> Stop doing that. Sure, laptops I get. They're likely disconnected from the network anyway. But desktops need to be online after hours to get updates and reboot. Or do you want to waste time during first period as your computer slows down then automatically reboots with an extra boot-wait?
No, I don't want to wait, but I don't think 50 computers should have to be left on in a lab an extra 12 hours a day to do an hours' worth of updates and reboot, either. What would be better is if operating systems weren't absolute shit that requires a gigabyte's worth of updates every 2 weeks.
Re: (Score:2)
> What would be better is if operating systems weren't absolute shit that requires a gigabyte's worth of updates every 2 weeks.
That would be ideal, but barring that, we could use WoL to wake them up when they need updates. The technology is only what, 30 years old?
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>>> Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday.
>> Stop doing that. Sure, laptops I get. They're likely disconnected from the network anyway. But desktops need to be online after hours to get updates and reboot. Or do you want to waste time during first period as your computer slows down then automatically reboots with an extra boot-wait?
> No, I don't want to wait, but I don't think 50 computers should have to be left on in a lab an extra 12 hours a day to do an hours' worth of updates and reboot, either. What would be better is if operating systems weren't absolute shit that requires a gigabyte's worth of updates every 2 weeks.
You do know that computers left on go into "sleep mode" which, I learned a few years ago can use less power that that same computer being turned off (by the soft switch on the case front).
(I can't really explain the why, but I looked into this for a K-12 public school system (12?) years ago and the computers we had at that time, Dell Optiplex computers, used less power sleeping than they did turned-off, waiting for the soft-switch to pressed to turn-on the system. I readily admit that this situation has lik
Re: (Score:2)
Or you schedule your updates yourself. Why not click "update now", update, and then shut down the PC? Seems Microsoft really got people conditioned to follow the update schedule Windows decides for you.
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At my workplace running updates now takes an hour or two due to the fact that they have maximized anti-virus settings, so letting the updates roll in at night is the best alternative.
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What about the "update & shutdown" option?
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There is a thing called Wake On Lan that does a fantastic job of turning your system on when the IT folks decide
it's time to update / upgrade your system.
You first (Score:1)
Turn off the AC to your office. Lead by example.
Transmission lines not power plants (Score:5, Insightful)
Henrico county (aka where Richmond Virginia is located) has enough power plants, they are short on transmission lines.
This is a common issue, as it is easier to convince Dominion (or other electrical companies) to build a new power plant, they are revenue generators. Few power plant have lost money. But substations and other transmission costs can be built in the wrong location and cost you more money than they generate.
So transmission lines tend to be looked at as infrastructure that costs you money, especially if it is not near a heavy population center.
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The tragedy of the commons all over. Well, at least Europe seem to have woken up and is now strongly investing into transmission infrastructure. The failure of that happening in the US nicely shows that market-driven infrastructure does not work. Of course, for community-driven infrastructure, you need sane leadership, so ....
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A data center is a type of industry that wants a very consistent and fixed amount of power. It can run 24 hours per day and the lid won't fluctuate heavily. It's actually a great candidate for just building a power plant next door that produces what the data center will consume. That's literally the dream scenario for a power plant because for many types of generation having to ramp up and down is more costly than delivering a fixed amount of power. Data centers can be built out in the middle of nowhere and
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> sell them cheap electricity below market price
Uh, by definition, whatever rate the utility company sells them electricity is "market price" - they can't actually sell electricity below "market price" when they, in fact, are the market.
They can offer a discount over historical pricing, and I suspect that is what you meant.
I think the reality is that the school district has been wasteful in their electricity consumption, and that should be looked at
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Build data centers next to power plants. Problem solved.
Now, where's my Nobel Prize?
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The school district has solar panels on their buildings, they have (some) electric buses, I suspect they have A/C in their classrooms, and who knows, maybe electric heat? They spend a lot on electricity in my opinion ($20M, going up 25% to $25M if they don't reduce their consumption level).
I suspect they can save a lot of electricity if they put their mind to it...
Who could have seen this coming (Score:3)
I can't believe it. Surely those "ai haters" weren't telling the truth. Come on.
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Of course! A ridiculous postulate. On an entirely unrelated note, the county is also asking power consumers to bring their own lube.
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> Why do you think the energy prices might be increasing, thus necessitating this letter from the county? It surely couldn't be the increased demand from all the data centers, could it?
Well, looking at the past 10 years it seems that Virginia had kept rates considerably lower than surrounding areas. And even after this jump they're on the lower side of regional energy inflation.
I used some of the evil AI to poke at things and it shakes out like this:
> Cumulative 10-Year Price Growth (2016 vs. 2026)
> According to historical data trackers and recent U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports, the Central East Coast regional footprint has seen some of the most volatile electricity pricing in the nation:Central East Coast States (NJ, NY, PA, DE, MD):
> Over the last 10 years, retail electricity prices across all sectors in these neighboring states rose by an average of 35% to 45%.
> In particular, states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey experienced massive wholesale and retail spikes due to regional grid capacity updates.
> VEPGA Negotiated Portfolio: From 2016 to 2024, VEPGA’s collective bargaining kept municipal rate growth remarkably flat—averaging under 1.5% in annual baseline changes. However, the 2025 base adjustments and the massive 24.9% hike starting July 1, 2026, pushed VEPGA's total 10-year cumulative increase to roughly 32% to 35%.
further poking at ye olde Gemini, credibly suggests that ~30% of the price increases area-wide ARE from grid capacity buildout and the rest is just general inflation, including fuel, and catchup maintenance.
So a 25% rate increase this year,
Electricity is not free (Score:5, Insightful)
// ... hosts 37 data centers and there are plans to build 17 more ...
I'm confused. Why not let the data centers pay for the electricity they use?
Who would build a data center without some kind of plan for providing funds for energy?
Re:Electricity is not free (Score:5, Informative)
> I'm confused. Why not let the data centers pay for the electricity they use? Who would build a data center without some kind of plan for providing funds for energy?
That's the problem. They are buying up the energy, and outbidding the schools for it, thus raising the price.
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Yes. Electricity is a traded good. If one consumer needs more and can pay for it, the price for everybody goes up.
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> Yes. Electricity is a traded good. If one consumer needs more and can pay for it, the price for everybody goes up.
For arbitrary traded goods, maybe. But for something essential like electricity or clean water, increasing everyone's prices on account of one customer is a good way to make all of the other customers very angry and potentially lead to riots, so it's not a very good idea.
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> potentially lead to riots
The customers of said data centers tend to be primarily government departments. They have pretty good security. Drones, tanks, etc.
You won't riot.
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Calling something essential doesn't exempt it from the same "laws" of economics that everything is susceptible to. The benefit of increased prices are that they're attractive to suppliers. Make sure that it's no less difficult to build power plants than it is to build data centers and the problem becomes self-correcting.
If it hasn't already I suspect the real issue is that there were plenty of NIMBY laws that made it difficult to build power plants that didn't also apply to data centers. I'm sure someone
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The people building the datacentres had a plan. The people approving them, and offering big tax incentives, also had a plan. Part of that plan was electricity rates going up.
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Wow, that *does* sound like a deep, complex plan. I never made it past the "bribe" and "kickback" steps.
Now that I think about it, the list I considered only mentioned those two..
Re: (Score:2)
a) Supply curves slope upwards.
b) Datacenters are paying with Other People's Money; schools are paying with taxpayer money.
Re: (Score:1)
Because they belong to the ruling class.
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Maybe they did! I don't know why their rates are going up. The summary implies it's because of the data centers, but is it? For all I know, they're all powering themselves, and the State's PSC allowed the rate hike for some unrelated reason. The article is paywalled, and I have little faith in 404's reporting anyhow.
Other States have rules that require datacenters to power themselves without raising rates for anyone else. Does Virginia not?
We're being lied to about these data centers (Score:5, Insightful)
We are always being told by the billionaire tech bros and the county supervisors they pay off to have these monstrosity put in their countie that they won't consume resources nor will electricity rates go up. They're lying as this story points out quite clearly. The already wealthy pocket huge profits while the citizens bear the costs.
Re:We're being lied to about these data centers (Score:4, Interesting)
My small town planning commission voted for a data center, despite public outcry. Afterwards, one of the member's wife took a job with Amazon corporate and he resigned. They don't even hide it.
I recently got a letter from the water authority that I'm supposed to turn off the sink while I'm brushing my teeth and I'll get fined if I wash my car.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the data center will consume the equivalent of neighborhoods of reidential houses 24 hours/day, 365 days/year. They won't have caps imposed and will probably receive discounts that allow them water at a price order of magnitude less than the homeowners. When rolling blackouts come, they'll skip the data centers and extend the duration on everyone else.
BTW, it sounds like your town is in dire need of a recall.
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Bad assumptions. It may be a State that doesn't allow datacenters to raise electric rates, and they don't use that much water.
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Was that letter at all related? They don't use much water once they're up and running. Most of the water they use goes into making concrete.
A data center near me was in the news (here) recently, because the town's new water meters didn't work right, leading to the datacenter being underbilled. The story was framed as the datacenter trying to steal water.
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Yeah... no. There is no national law about it, but many States do require datacenters to power themselves in a way that doesn't raise everyone else's rates. Georgia, for example. Maybe Virginia lacks this rule. If that's the case, it is a political failure they can rectify at any time.
North of Richmond .... (Score:2)
I'm going to guess the data centers are north of Richmond. :-(
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm going to guess the data centers are north of Richmond. :-(
Henrico County wraps clockwise around the top of Richmond from about the 9 to 5 o'clock positions. Most data centers are just north of Richmond, some are east and south-east. Plug, "Henrico County data center" into google Maps for pins.
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Management refuses to raise the AC above 62, what are you gonna do?
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Put a bag of ice over the thermostat.
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Funny, but in our cold office I actually employ undergarments and sometimes a sweatshirt. These also work when away from said heater and are removable, too.
Winter is coming (Score:2)
Parents : please ensure your children are sent to school with warm coats and thick gloves they can wear throughout the school day's lessons, to help us save energy costs.
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Most of Virginia doesn't get all that cold. 30 kids in a room with limited air circulation should suffice, even without lots of insulation. Air conditioning, however, might well be a different matter.
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I went to school in VA. There was rarely a day that the heat would get turned on. They're big monolithic heat islands full of children, calorie powered.
We also didn't have A/C back then, either. Windows would be open all day. I doubt they do that now.
More get-rich-quick nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Strategic investments, like in educating kids? That have positive effect over their whole 45 year work life? Naa, we do not do that. We must make money NOW!
Ration (Score:2)
The word is ration. And you're next.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, how about putting the burden on the data center operators?
Just charge the data center owners/operators (Score:4, Insightful)
Since those data centers are a big reason for the cost of electricity going up, why not just make the data centers pay enough in local taxes to cover the utility price increases for government AND all the "regular" citizens? Give the people a tax cut for the amount they would get as a rebate from charging the data centers for what they are doing to the local populace.
Re: (Score:2)
Prove it.
Pointless (Score:3)
Based on a quick search, about 9,000 idle usb chargers would have to be unplugged to equate to a single GPU running a training task. The extra wear/tear on the outlets could eclipse the savings.
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It would be more effective to not use Big Tech services, provide courses on self-hosting software, and put PV on school roofs.
utilities will always stick it to the little guy (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in San Diego, where water is a chronic issue, we've all been asked to cut use year over year. But our water bill goes up anyway. Last justification? we don't use enough to justify discounts, so they had to raise our rates!
Hey Siri (Score:2)
Hey Siri, are you taking the piss?
Why? (Score:2)
I know this comes off trollish, but: why can't these power companies (which are usually public utilities) just build more power production instead of jacking prices? What's the deal? Why is this a "hate on AI that runs in datacenters" problem, and not a "just produce more power" problem?
Solar panels and wind energy (Score:3, Interesting)
This is where I don't understand the local government.. if there's a use case for them to get solar panels and wind turbines on the school properties - it's this. The extra money that they'll be forking over year after year, can instead be spent on solar. The time of the year where they get max generation is also when school is not in session. That ought to help with the overall energy consumption.
The problem here is that it takes some political will to get something like this done. You'll have to tell people that you don't care about the looks, but rather the end result - less overall taxes and so forth.. but sadly, I don't see that happening.
Color me surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
God, the U.S. has become such an absolute fucking clown show.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> We need communism NOW.
That would make the current government look good in comparison.
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> This wouldn't happen in China. They're opening a nuclear plant every three months. The US doesn't have the skill or money to do this any more.
So you propose U.S. to move to dictatorship instead of communism as the grand parent says? Good riddance.
Re: (Score:2)
Communism is a dictatorship.
Re:Color me surprised... (Score:5, Interesting)
So long as having the things that everybody needs requires that a whole lot of people work hard, we can't have communism. It will just create widespread poverty like it has every other time it was tried, because it contradicts basic human psychology too strongly.
AFTER we have the level of labor automation that everyone is afraid of, where basically everything is done by robots and there are only enough jobs (of any kind) for only a tiny fraction of the population, something like communism might be sustainable. And even that is a maybe (we have zero examples of this from which to draw a conclusion, so all we can do is speculate).
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It doesn't require nearly as many people working nearly as hard as we have now to provide for everyone.
Re:Color me surprised... (Score:4, Insightful)
But still far too much.
Buildings still need to be built, and its hard work. So is building and maintaining sewer lines, power lines, cell phone networks etc.
Food is still grown by human farmers. A few farmers can make a whole lot of food, but those farmers have to work hard to do it. The same goes for everything else farmed or derived from livestock.
The factories that produce all our consumer trinkets still need a lot of human operators.
The list goes on and on.
Even if we did cease all overproduction and re-organize labor to make only what we need (presumably with extra saved up for emergencies), there would be far too much human labor required for it to be accomplished without paying the laborers in proportion to their effort and the rarity of their skill set. Asking them to put up with that "for the greater good" will result in the exact same consequences we consistently see when we try this (which is to say, failure, starvation, and violence).
Re: Color me surprised... (Score:2)
Adopt Chinese style communism
Let market thinking work, but set quotas for employment, work hours, production levels and punish those who fail to perform severely
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"Chinese style communism" is just capitalism with the intention of converting over to communism later, in direct accordance with the theories of Marx. He predicted that poor countries could not jump in as communist countries, because they just redistribute poverty (which is exactly how it played out each time it was tried). He stated that a country must embrace capitalism first, in order to generate great wealth, and then once the forces of production were great enough the workers would all realize they d
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"before that it was pure communism and was responsible for mass starvation with death tolls in the tens of millions"
that was because they followed the pseudoscience of Lysenkoism that was also devastating to the Soviets.
Trofim Lysenko should have been turfed as soon as Stalin was gone but Khrushchev also supported him which puzzled me.
Re: (Score:3)
You know there are varying degrees between these two systems?
Re:Color me surprised... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. Fortunately, the rest of the world has now understood that (which is one of the major accomplishments of Trump, so he has some good effects after all, even if they are not what he intended), and is preparing top do without. The transition will take some time, so it would be nice if the US does not do a total collapse, but a slow slide into the 2nd world. But even if that collapse happens, the rest of the world will be ok.
Re: (Score:1)
> The transition will take some time, so it would be nice if the US does not do a total collapse, but a slow slide into the 2nd world. But even if that collapse happens, the rest of the world will be ok.
The USA is the world's second largest manufacturer of heavy equipment, and it won't just go quietly. The death throes will be substantial. Meanwhile we've been getting a tech transfer from Ukraine so the USA can function in modern warfare.
Nothing good happens if the USA fails.
Re:Color me surprised... (Score:4, Informative)
Not a problem. Heavy equipment has a tendency to run for a long, long time. Sure, there will be problems, but they will be possible to manage. And do you really think there is a choice? The US is actively self-destroying these days. Do you really think the rest of the world can do anything about that?
Re: Color me surprised... (Score:2)
You failed to read between the lines there.
You think it's not an problem if a hostile superpower with massive manufacturing capacity is going to go through some hard times?
You remind me of Macron being all happy to make Trump sign a treaty at Versailles. How did that go the last time?
Re: (Score:2)
> You failed to read between the lines there.
Nope. And where did I say "not a problem"? Please provide a citation.