Virginia’s power grid is approaching its limit. Here’s what that means for national defense. - Converge Strategies

Virginia’s power grid is approaching its limit. Here’s what that means for national defense.

Explore Unleashing Virginia Report

The Big Picture

The U.S. military runs on electricity, as do the defense communities and defense industries that support and supply it. The commercial grid carrying that electricity was built in the 20th century, and it has not expanded to keep pace with demand. Now, it has little capacity left to spare.

Why It Matters

The Pentagon, Naval Station Norfolk and Radford Army Ammunition Plant all depend on the same thing: reliable power. That gap between what the grid can deliver and forecasted electricity demand inspired one of the first state-level studies in the country on whether the power grid can meet national defense requirements in peacetime or in times of conflict.

What the Numbers Show

Virginia’s defense load — the power that keeps its military bases, defense communities, and defense industry running — is approaching the limit of what the grid can reliably deliver. Virginia’s transmission system can reliably support only a 5-10% increase above the 3,500 MW defense baseline. 175–350 MW stands between Virginia and an unreliable grid that’s less than a single large data center.

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State of Play

We modeled four scenarios, and the pattern was consistent: the more defense demand grows, the more the grid needs and the faster costs for upgrades climb.

A modest 20% increase in defense demand calls for tens of millions of dollars in upgrades.
Push that to 50%, and Virginia would need to import power from other states.
Double it, and the fix runs into the billions and requires rebuilding the high-voltage lines that carry power across state lines.
Layer a summer heat emergency on top of even a modest defense increase, and the projects already planned aren’t enough to keep the lights reliably on.

The Way Ahead

The first power flow analysis to model the national security stakes of Virginia’s constrained grid capacity — “Unleashing Virginia_Converge Strategies and Energy Strategies” by Converge Strategies, LLC and Energy Strategies — provides a shared foundation to catalyze coordination between Virginia’s defense, energy, and economic development stakeholders.

The report’s recommendations point toward a fix: factor Virginia’s defense needs into the grid planning processes that already exist. These recommendations require intentional planning and sustained investment, and represent an opportunity for Virginia to lead:

Update the state’s energy plans to account for defense grid risk in transmission decisions.
Engage PJM (the regional grid operator) and utilities through frameworks such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 1920, which now requires long-term, scenario-based transmission planning.
Pursue special designation for the lines that serve defense-critical loads in the national interest.
Push utilities to forecast defense demand in their long-range resource plans the way they already do for data centers. Bring the Department of War to the table on shared infrastructure investment.

Virginia’s military installations are critical to national defense. Their missions rely on a network of interconnected communities and industries. As both military and civilian electricity demand continues to surge across the country, Virginia has an opportunity to pioneer a new approach to aligning electricity investment with national defense.