For well over a year, the twin problems of rising utility bills and soaring electric demand spurred by the AI boom have consumed the energy policy debate in Virginia, the data center capital of the world.

Clean energy foes — mostly Republicans — say the state’s landmark zero-carbon mandate should be scaled back or scrapped to lower costs and meet electricity needs. Many environmental advocates, meanwhile, are calling for a moratorium on new data centers, a step taken recently by governors in both red Texas and blue New York.

But a new clean energy plan crafted by Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger offers a different solution: Leverage the growth of data centers to go carbon-free.

Unveiled Oct. 1, the document doubles down on the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), which requires utilities to produce all carbon-free energy by midcentury; and participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate compact to curtail carbon pollution.

At the same time, the blueprint lays out how investor-owned utilities Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power can comply with those laws while feeding power-hungry data centers and getting them to foot the bill.

“There’s been a lot of speculation that our clean energy laws are too ambitious or out of reach,” said Josephus Allmond, Spanberger’s chief energy officer, at a news conference to announce the plan. ​“This modeling should put that notion to bed.”

State law requires the energy plan to be updated every four years. , experts say.

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