US utility Dominion Energy has reaffirmed its commitment to building new power generation to support the growing power demands of data centers in Virginia.

In its latest earnings call, the firm said it anticipates connecting 16 new data centers in 2024 and is studying around 8GW of additional demand.

Dominion has already connected 14 new data centers this year, with the connection rate up slightly year on year, with an average of 15 data centers per annum since 2013. As of July 2024, Dominion's data center demand was over 21GW, compared to around 16GW as of July 2023.

Citing Dominion Virginia's recently released Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), Robert Blue, CEO of Dominion, confirmed that the utility is focused on building new generation capacity to meet the rising power demand within the Virginian market.

“It's potentially doubling the amount of offshore wind. It's adding a substantial amount more natural gas than last year's IRP. It's adding additional solar beyond what the Clean Economy Act calls for and large amounts of battery storage,” said Blue.

To meet this rising demand, the IRP set out an “all-of-the-above" approach, which includes increasing power generation from every source, extensive grid upgrades, and energy efficiency programs to maintain grid reliability while meeting unprecedented growth in power demand. The plan's power generation profile is largely derived from carbon-free sources, representing 80 percent of the overall capacity.

In addition, the company doubled down on its interest in the small modular reactor (SMR) sector, citing three main reasons:

“One is significant demand growth, largely driven by large users like data centers. Second, a continued focus on around-the-clock carbon-free generation to meet reliability and carbon reduction goals. And the third is that US leadership and nuclear technology are important to national security,” stated Robert Blue.

Dominion sees its Virginia utility as right at the intersection of all three. As a result, the state is likely to become a hotbed of both traditional nuclear and SMR development due to its location and position as “the most nuclear-friendly state in the United States with strong bipartisan support for next generation nuclear initiatives,” said Blue

Subsequently, Dominion has pinpointed SMRs, offshore wind, and battery storage as key players in its “all-of-the-above" approach. Without naming specific companies, Dominion reported that several hyperscalers are interested in signing similar SMR agreements to those signed between Dominion and Amazon last month.

The commitment from Dominion is part of a broader push within the data center sector toward nuclear power. Earlier this month, Google signed a corporate agreement to purchase nuclear energy from multiple SMRS from Karios Power, with an expected deployment date in 2030.

Colocation giant Equinix has agreed to purchase 500MW in PPAs from fast fission reactor company Oklo, while Prometheus Hyperscale has also agreed to purchase 100MW from the Sam Altman-backed business.