“Addressing our neighbors' noise concerns in Prince William County is a priority for us," a company spokesman said in a statement. Activists say the ordinance was written more than 30 years ago and never anticipated the massive cooling systems used in data centers.Īmazon Web Services, for its part, said it's installing acoustical shrouds at the site as part of its noise-reduction efforts. That's roughly equivalent to the entire output of Dominion Energy's nuclear reactors at its North Anna power plant.īrowne and his neighbors say noise from the data center regularly exceeds the local limit of 60 decibels for noise - a study by Amazon disputes this - but it's largely a moot point because the county noise ordinance exempts air conditioning units. markets combined, according to the Northern Virginia Technology Council.Ĭollectively, the northern Virginia data centers demand about 1,900 megawatts of power, said Josh Levi, president of the Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group. Northern Virginia has been a tech hub since the formation of the internet, and now hosts more data centers than the next five largest U.S. “We are the canary in the coalmine,” Browne said.
Speakers at the protest said they fear Prince William County is on the verge of joining its neighbor, Loudoun County, which is known as the data center capital of the world. And he's worried that the noise will only get worse in winter, when a line of trees that provides something of a buffer sheds its leaves. Residents there led a protest recently outside a nearby data center in Prince William County, newly built to support Amazon Web Services.īrowne said he preferred the quarry that used to occupy the land over the data center. “It's just a constant whir at a frequency that's obnoxious,” said Dale Browne, president of the Great Oak Homeowners Association.
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