Virginia narrowly avoided power cuts when 60 data centers dropped off the grid at once
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Sixty data centers in Northern Virginia using 1,500MW of power dropped off the grid simultaneously last summer, forcing the network operators to take drastic action to avoid widespread blackouts in the region.
The near-miss incident, revealed in regulatory filings and first reported by Reuters, saw the data centers in Fairfax County all switch to backup generators en masse as a result of an equipment fault on the grid.
GridoperatorPJMInterconnectionandlocalutilitycompanyDominionwereforcedtoquicklyscalebackthevolumeofenergygoingintothenetworkfrompowerstations.Ifleftunattended,sucharapidincreaseintheamountofavailablepowercouldhavetriggeredasurgeandcausedsystemstotripout,potentiallyleadingtoblackoutsacrossVirginia.
NorthernVirginiaistheworld’sbusiestdatacentermarket,andcontinuestoattractnewdevelopmentsdespiteconstraintsonthegrid.
NorthernVirginianear-misscausedbyroutinesafetyprocedureAccordingtoanincidentreportfromtheNorthAmericanElectricReliabilityCorporation(NERC),thet
