May Not Be Subject to County or Municipal Zoning: West Virginia's 2025 Act on Certified High Impact Data Centers

West Virginia's Legislature passed the Committee Substitute for House Bill 2014 on April 12, 2025, and the enrolled act prints that it was "in effect 90 days from passage (July 11, 2025)." Its title says it relates "to the generation and consumption of electric power." Among other things, it creates a certified microgrid development program and a High Impact Data Center Program, and it limits what counties and municipalities may require of a certified data center. Parts of the act follow, not the whole.

The Legislature's Findings

In its section on data centers, the Legislature finds that data centers are "critical national infrastructure" that require abundant, low-cost energy to protect sensitive data, operate computing assets and keep the digital economy resilient. It finds that "As of early 2025," the highest concentration of high-level computational power and data centers in the world "is located in Loudoun County, Virginia," and that "This severe concentration of data centers in one location is a national security vulnerability because it invites the potential for cyberattacks and espionage against the Nation's critical data infrastructure." Data centers, the findings say, have historically drawn their electricity from the grid, and some developers "now seek or require the use of microgrids to provide their primary and backup power."

Then the state itself. West Virginia, the Legislature finds, "is strategically positioned as the best location in the United States to place data centers," and the act gives seven reasons, lettered A to G. They are the state's nearness to Washington, D.C., and the federal government, and to "the majority of the Nation's population"; its low tax rates; and what the act calls "the least restrictive regulatory environment in the Nation." The rest are its supply of "abundant energy and natural resources to power the data centers"; its supply of resources such as methane from coal mines blended with natural gas, "to assist data centers locating in West Virginia to meet their energy needs and environmental goals"; and a workforce it calls "skilled and loyal," with "some of the lowest turnover rates in the Nation."

"As such," the findings say, "the state has a significant interest in encouraging the development and expansion of data centers, which can serve as drivers of broader economic growth." The Legislature also finds that "these externalities transcend local borders, including environmental concerns, energy consumption, and regional economic growth."

These are a legislature's reasons, written into its law, and they measure no single site. A lender would still want to see the power and the workforce at the parcel itself.

Certification, and a Liaison

A high impact data center, in the act's definitions, is a facility or group of facilities on one or more parcels in the state that is "owned, operated, or leased by an entity or affiliated group of entities," and is used to house and operate equipment that "receives, stores, aggregates, manages, processes, transforms, retrieves, researches, or transmits data," or equipment necessary for its proper operation. It also "Has a critical IT load in the aggregate of 90 megawatts total or higher," and "Is placed into service on or after July 1, 2025."

A data center must compare its current or planned operations against that definition and notify the Division of Economic Development "within 30 days after the data center determines that it meets these requirements," or when it "reasonably anticipates" that it will meet them at a future date. The Secretary of the Department of Commerce is to certify a data center "upon a finding that a data center satisfies the requirements" of the definition, and "shall issue confirmation of certification to a high impact data center within 14 days following receipt of the notification from the data center required by this section."

Another new section has the Department of Commerce "assist projects developing or operating" a certified microgrid district or a certified high impact data center. The Secretary is to designate a staff member as the "Data Economy Liaison," a single point of contact for both, "to assist coordinate and expedite their development and operation, including, but not limited to site selection and permitting." In that section, "It is the intent of the Legislature to occupy the whole field of the creation and regulation of certified microgrid districts and certified high impact data centers," and its stated purpose "is to promote uniform and consistent application of the act within the state."

What Changes Locally, and What Stays

The same section prohibits counties and municipalities, "whether by ordinance, resolution, administrative act, or otherwise," from enacting or enforcing rules "which limit, in any way," the creation, acquisition, construction, equipping, development, expansion and operation of any certified microgrid district or certified high impact data center project. Certified microgrid districts and certified high impact data centers "may not be subject to" county or municipal "zoning, horticultural, noise, viewshed, lighting, development, or land use ordinances, restrictions, limitations, or approvals." The act's list also takes in county or municipal building permitting, inspection and code enforcement, and license requirements.

Some things stay. Notwithstanding certification, the owner, operator or manager and its tenants "shall" pay business and occupation tax and collect municipal sales and use taxes where applicable, pay property tax "pursuant to the same millage rates as any other business or commercial venture located within the county and municipality," pay municipal service fees and utility rates, and build "pursuant to the State Building Code."

For a certified project, the act takes county and municipal zoning out of the choice of site.