Where does your
AI prompt go?
Type any prompt to see its electrical, water, and carbon footprint, and which model does the same job for the least environmental cost.
Live Data
Real-time energy and water numbers across Virginia, the US, and the world.
Where does this number come from?
25 TWh/year (JLARC 2024) ÷ 31,557,600 sec = 792 kWh/sec · Accumulates from page load via requestAnimationFrame
Where does this number come from?
792 kWh/sec × 1.8 L/kWh (WUE, Li et al. 2023) = 1,425 L/sec · Accumulates from page load
Where does this number come from?
EIA Open Data API v2 · retail-sales endpoint · facets[stateid][]=VA · All sectors summed for most recent month
Where does this number come from?
EIA Open Data API v2 · facets[stateid][]=US · All sectors summed for most recent month · Displayed in TWh (MWh ÷ 1,000,000)
Where does this number come from?
IEA Electricity 2025: US AI workloads ~40 TWh/year = 109.6 GWh/day · Accumulates from midnight UTC proportionally to seconds elapsed
Where does this number come from?
IEA Electricity 2025: global AI workloads ~200 TWh/year = 547.9 GWh/day · Accumulates from midnight UTC
Where does this number come from?
IEA Electricity 2025: global data centers ~460 TWh/year = 1,260 GWh/day · Accumulates from midnight UTC
Virginia Right Now
Data centers in Northern Virginia consume roughly 25% of the state's total electricity. Here is what that means for you, today.
Where Virginia's Data Centers Are
Dot size = installed capacity. Northern Virginia is the largest data center market on Earth.
Virginia vs. Major Data Center Markets
Northern Virginia hosts more data center capacity than any other metro on earth. Here is how it compares to other major hubs, and what that concentration means for the grid.
Sources: CBRE H2 2024 · EIA Electric Power Monthly 2024 · EPA eGRID 2022 · California SB 1110 · Cushman & Wakefield DC Report 2024
What Dominion Rate Changes Mean for You
| Year | Monthly Change | Annual Impact | Primary Driver |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Baseline | — | Last full year before increase |
| 2026 | +$11.24 / month | +$134.88 / year | First base-rate increase since 1992; PJM capacity costs, data center grid investment |
| 2027–2028 | +$15–25 / month (projected) | +$180–300 / year | Continued PJM cost pass-through, new transmission lines, grid hardening for data centers |
Policy Watch
Virginia is ground zero for AI infrastructure regulation. This is not advocacy; it is awareness of what is happening and what is at stake.
Virginia Mercury, Utility Dive, Data Center Knowledge, Hacker News: filtered for Virginia energy policy. Updates every hour.
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, and EPA official releases: unfiltered government data and announcements.
Real Virginia General Assembly bills related to data centers, electricity rates, and grid reliability. Add a free LegiScan API key to config.js to activate.
Regulatory Timeline Manually updated
Who's Saying What
Forward-Looking Risk Factors
Methodology
Every number is documented. Every estimate is explained. Here is exactly how this site works.
How the Numbers Are Calculated
About This Project
WattsOwed is an independent research project focused on making the real resource costs of AI infrastructure tangible and understandable for everyday Virginians, people affected through their electricity bills, water supply, and grid reliability.
If you are an educator, researcher, journalist, or advocate who wants to share or build on this data, please reach out. This site is open-source and hosted on GitHub Pages.
View on GitHub ↗