Data Center Load Growth in the DMV: What Is Verifiable and What Is Just Circulating

By Max Fisher · Published 2026-10-22 · Updated 2026-10-24

Short answer. Electricity demand from data centers, concentrated in Northern Virginia, is real and large, and the grid operator that serves the whole DMV says so in its own forecast. That matters to anyone weighing an electric heat pump, because regional demand feeds into grid planning and, eventually, into rate cases. But a lot of the specific numbers attached to the story online do not trace back to any filing. Heat pump installers and homeowners alike should ask where a figure came from before repeating it. This page lists the numbers we could trace and shows you how to trace the rest.

Who forecasts demand for the DMV

PJM Interconnection is the regional transmission organization that runs the high-voltage grid and wholesale power market for a region that includes Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC. Each year it publishes a long-term load forecast that utilities and state regulators use for planning. PJM explains its process on its load forecast development page.

Your local utility, such as BGE, Pepco, Potomac Edison or Dominion Energy, is a separate company. It delivers power to your house and sets its delivery rates through a state rate case (see how electricity rates are set).

What the primary sources actually say

PJM’s 2026 Load Forecast Report

PJM’s 2026 Load Forecast Report, posted January 14, 2026, reports for the whole PJM region:

Summer peak load growth averaging 3.6 percent a year over the next 10 years and 2.4 percent over 20 years.
A summer peak forecast of 222,106 MW in 2036, a 10-year increase of 65,733 MW.
Winter peak growth averaging 4.0 percent a year over 10 years, and net energy growth averaging 5.3 percent a year over 10 years.

The report lists the zones whose forecasts were adjusted for large load changes. Dominion (the DOM zone, which covers Northern Virginia) is adjusted for growth in data center load and a voltage optimization program. BGE and Pepco are among the zones also adjusted for growth in data center load.

PJM also notes a method change: near-term forecast years now count only “firm” commitments, and longer-term projects are treated as non-firm and derated because they are less certain. That brought near-term large load adjustments down compared with the 2025 forecast. In other words, PJM’s own numbers moved, and they will move again.

Dominion’s own data center forecast

Dominion Energy presented its 20-year data center forecast to a PJM subcommittee on September 29, 2026. Its slides state:

Approximately 500 data center metered accounts and 55 data center companies connected.
Data center billing peak load of 4.8 GW as of August 2026.
Approximately 54 GW of capacity under contract at various stages.
19 GW (59 percent) of the earliest-stage agreements, engineering letters of authorization, left out of its forecast.

That last point is the useful one. Even the utility treats a large share of contracted capacity as too uncertain to forecast. A blog post that adds up every announced project and calls it future demand is not doing what the grid operator or the utility does.

What we deliberately do not repeat

Online content in this niche often states figures like “data centers will use X percent of Maryland’s power by 2030,” “residential customers subsidize data centers by $Y,” or “rates will rise Z percent because of data centers.” We could not trace most of those to PJM, a utility filing or a state commission order. Some trace only to another blog post. We have left them out.

That is not a claim that the effects are small. It is a claim that a number without a filing behind it is not evidence.

How to check a figure yourself

When you see a number, ask three questions:

Who published it first? PJM, a utility, a state commission, a consumer advocate, or a website summarizing one of them?
Which document and which date? Forecasts are revised every year. A 2024 figure may not match the 2026 report.
What exactly does it measure? Summer peak, winter peak, annual energy, contracted capacity and billed demand are different things. Mixing them is how many of the circulating numbers inflate.

Where to look:

PJM: the annual load forecast report and the subcommittee materials where utilities present their adjustments.
The Maryland Public Service Commission: its website has a case search and a proceedings dashboard for rate cases.
The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel: the residential ratepayer advocate publishes plain-language guides to pending rate cases and a utility rates and basics page.
For Virginia: Dominion states that it shares its forecast with the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which runs Virginia’s integrated resource planning process.

A worked example

Say a post claims “Northern Virginia data centers already need 54 GW.” Trace it and you find Dominion’s September 2026 slides. The 54 GW is capacity under contract at several stages, from early engineering letters to signed service agreements. The same slides put actual billed data center peak load at 4.8 GW in August 2026, and leave 59 percent of the earliest-stage agreements out of the forecast entirely. The claim is not invented. It is a real number used to describe the wrong thing. That gap, between contracted capacity and power actually drawn from the grid, is the most common way these figures get stretched.

What this means for a heat pump decision

Electricity prices are a real input when you compare a heat pump with a gas, oil or propane system. Regional demand growth is one pressure on those prices, alongside delivery costs, which Maryland’s consumer advocate says have been the main driver of recent bill increases. Nobody can tell you the exact rate you will pay in ten years.

Practical ways to handle that uncertainty:

Compare operating costs at today’s actual rates, from your bill or your utility’s tariff, not a projection from a sales page.
Run a second scenario with electricity a good deal more expensive, and see whether the heat pump still makes sense for you.
Shrink the load first. Sealing and insulating a house lowers its heating demand whatever the price per kilowatt-hour. See is your home ready.
Look at efficiency, not just price. A cold-climate heat pump sized from a Manual J uses less electricity than a poorly sized one. See how heat pumps work.

The bottom line on sources

The direction is well documented: data center demand is growing fast in the DMV, and grid planners are treating it as a major factor. The precise numbers attached to that story are worth exactly as much as the filing behind them. If a contractor, a utility ad or an article cites one, ask for the document.

How to verify this yourself

PJM: 2026 Load Forecast Report
Dominion Energy: 20-year data center forecast presentation to PJM
Maryland Public Service Commission and Office of People’s Counsel

Tell us if a source changes. To compare installers in Northern Virginia’s data center corridor, start with Ashburn, Sterling or Manassas.