Case Study: Culpeper County — The Quiet Successor

This case study examines how Culpeper County, Virginia accumulated roughly 12 to 13 million square feet of data center development and 2,435 megawatts of power requests without a single major public fight. The report traces the outcome to a 2021 zoning decision that made data centers a by-right use across a 690-acre corridor, avoiding the hearings and votes that produced conflict elsewhere in the county. It documents the two-government structure that let an incorporated town profit from the buildout while avoiding its own electricity load, and the tightening that followed once the zone filled: new limits on by-right development, a town ban on new data centers, a board election that ousted three supervisors, and a 2026 transmission fight.