CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – West Virginia Delegates passed House Bill 2014 in hopes of attracting companies to use microgrids.
“Perhaps our biggest effort to try to recruit new, high impact data centers here to the state of West Virginia and what that really means for the people of the state of West Virginia is hundreds, potentially billions of dollars of investment,” Del. Daniel Linville, R-Cabell, said.
Microgrids allow companies to use natural resources, without using the state’s existing infrastructure.
“For those who don’t know, a microgrid is a self-contained power network that operates separate from the main power grid,” West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said.
The governor said current state code allows for two microgrids, and he’s pushed for the bill’s passing.
Linville, who’s chair of the Energy and Public Works Committee, said allowing data centers to come in for AI and cloud storage would ultimately create more jobs.
“Some of these data centers are as small as about 100 megawatts, or go all the way up to gigawatts, so more than 1,000 megawatts,” Linville said. “For every megawatt there’s one permanent and one indirect job, so if you had a thousand megawatt project just on one, that would bring in roughly 2,000 jobs.”
Linville said, “This is what’s powering that AI and Chat GPT and some of these things that you’re seeing and using on your cell phones and beginning to use in everyday life. There is a tremendous amount of investment that’s going on here, and we’re trying to be on the front edge of this.”
Linville said if data canters come to the state, the bill would give 20 percent of additional property taxes to a grid stabilization fund to lower electric rates across the state and roughly five percent would go to low income families through the Low Income Energy Assistance Program, helping cover utility costs.
“A lot of the costs of your electric bill are the upkeep of this grid, are replacing power poles as they get knocked down or taking care of our existing coal fired utilities and even some nat (natural) gas. What this bill looks to do is instead of you paying for it, the tax dollars off of these new investments are going to help pay for it instead,” Linville said.
Linville said 55 percent of the property taxes from microgrids would be used for personal income tax cuts, about 20 percent goes to economic development closing funds and five percent goes to the economic enhancement grant fund for the water development authority’s projects across the state.
Linville said a company would have to produce 60 percent of their electricity from a high impact data center to use a microgrid in West Virginia, and there have been multiple companies looking to bring data centers to the state.
House Bill 2014 was passed on the House floor on Tuesday and is headed to the Senate.
For previous coverage, click here.
Copyright 2025 WSAZ. All rights reserved.