The strain on Northern Virginia’s electrical grid is now being seen – and felt – inside some of the region’s schools.
Ten different public schools in Fairfax County lost power Sunday night, hours before the first day of school, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid said.
Reid said there have been 16 incidents of power issues during the first week of school. Each of the incidents involved multiple schools.
Since last July, FCPS has had more than 1,400 power interruptions, she said.
“We’ve had to move programs, cancel programs. It really has been a bit of a challenge,” Reid told News4.
The schools included Burke School, Clermont Elementary School, Daniels Run Elementary School, Irving Middle School, Keene Mill Elementary School, Newington Forest Elementary School, Rolling Valley Elementary School, Stratford Landing Elementary School, Mark Twain Middle School and West Potomac High School.
School generators can kick in to keep the lights on, Reid said, but the generators can’t power the refrigerators that store kids’ food, nor can they power air conditioning and heating units.
The increasing demand on the region’s electrical infrastructure, likely exacerbated by data centers, is believed to be behind the outages, she said.
“That’s my understanding, that we often hear that when we call in to say, ‘Hey, you know, it doesn’t look like there’s a weather issue, but the power’s out again,’ and we often hear, ‘Well, it’s within the grid,” Reid said.
Dominion Energy said in a statement to News4 that it had “no record of 10 FCPS schools experiencing outages” about 9 p.m. on Sunday.
The utility company has previously acknowledged that data centers have dramatically impacted the region’s energy grid. But when News4 reached out to Dominion Energy on Friday, a spokesperson said in part: “The cause of an individual outage can vary, and we would need to review specific incidents to determine whether there is a common cause. Based on the outages we have reviewed, we have not established a connection between these events and data centers or other large-load customers.”
On Wednesday, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger spoke about the issue during an interview with News4 on a wide range of issues.
“The clear priority in this scenario is that our schools need to be able to have the lights on and the education of our children is the top, top priority,” Spanberger said.
FCPS has had to hire additional electricians to work 24/7, and had to purchase new protective gear to limit the impact electrical surges have on their equipment, according to Reid.
The school district said it spends about $100,000 annually, on overtime costs for facilities staff to respond to power outages and that number doesn’t include the work of exempt employees responding around the clock to assist.
Spokespeople for Loudoun County Public Schools and Prince William County Public Schools told News4 that recurring power outages have not been a problem in their districts.
Dominion Energy also said in its statement that if FCPS has documented outage events that are not reflected in its records, it would gladly review the specific dates, times and locations.
