Google Confirms Goochland Data Center Study for Potential 1,200 MW Campus
Google confirmed due diligence on a roughly 1,000-acre West Creek site in Goochland County, Virginia. No plans are filed, and by-right zoning means no public hearing would be required.
2 min readAI-assisted
File photo of a Google data center in The Dalles, Oregon; it is not the proposed Goochland County, Virginia site.
Image: Google
Source · Press image from the Google data centers media pages, used for news reporting.
Google is doing due diligence on a roughly 1,000-acre site in West Creek Business Park, Goochland County, Virginia, for a potential 1,200-megawatt Goochland data center campus, the company confirmed on Oct. 28, according to Richmond BizSense and Virginia Business.
The confirmation came after a county release. Goochland County Administrator Jeremy Raley said Google has submitted no plans to the county. If Google buys the land, the next step would be site engineering for a site plan, Richmond BizSense reported. The site would straddle Route 288 north of Patterson Avenue and is owned by an entity tied to Pruitt Associates and Riverstone Group.
The 1,200 MW figure tied to Google's West Creek study is the largest of three developments in the SCC case, as reported.
Illustration (AI-generated)
The 1,200 MW figure comes from a Virginia State Corporation Commission case on Dominion Energy's West Creek 230-kilovolt transmission loop and substation. A July 14 report by the commission's chief hearing examiner describes three potential data center developments with projected demand of 200 MW, 900 MW and 1,200 MW, as Virginia Business reported; Richmond BizSense put the middle project at 600 MW. For the largest, the prospective customer had executed four engineering letters of authorization totaling 1,200 MW, a project that would need four new substations, Virginia Business reported.
Why the zoning matters
The land lies in the county's technology overlay district, approved last November. Any data center there is a by-right use, so it would not go through a public hearing. That sets it apart from Tract's Tuckahoe Tech Park, planned just west on a 900-acre tract where data centers need a conditional-use permit and public hearings. A formal application for that project was filed in August.
For power planners, the filing is the signal to watch. Engineering letters of authorization put a project in Dominion's queue, where, Richmond BizSense noted, a site can wait years for a feasibility study. Four substations for one customer is a large new load for one county.
The NDA and the timeline
Goochland said it signed a non-disclosure agreement with Google on Jan. 10, 2024 and met the company once on Jan. 30 of that year. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership later told the county Google was not moving forward. After the technology overlay district passed, Google re-engaged, and the county and Google agreed on Oct. 27 to release the NDA. Secrecy deals are a live issue for host communities, as Voltgrid reported when Amazon, Microsoft and Google dropped NDAs for officials.
Voltgrid News also covered Google's Hermantown data center vote delay after protests. Google is already building a campus on a 300-plus-acre site at 2700 Bermuda Hundred Road in eastern Chesterfield County, Richmond BizSense said. Virginia Business put its Chesterfield investment at an estimated $3 billion, and also cited a $3 billion campus planned in Botetourt County.
What is not confirmed yet
Google has not bought the land or said it will build. No timeline, investment figure or power source has been given, and Google did not say how many of the 1,200 MW would be IT load. A court is also weighing a motion to dismiss a residents' lawsuit that challenges how the county adopted the overlay district; a ruling could affect by-right projects there.
