At Vantage Data Centers’ VA2 campus in Sterling, eight on-site natural-gas turbines supply electricity instead of the electric grid. During a July incident, the turbine plant failed, and dozens of diesel backup generators kicked in under an emergency exemption in the facility’s air permit, according to Kaizen Executive.
The caption on the original Instagram post stated, “A Vantage Data Centers facility in Sterling, Virginia, ran backup diesel generators for nearly 24 hours after its on-site power plant failed during a Code Red air-quality alert.”
The generators began operating after regional air quality had already reached Code Red levels because wildfire smoke from Canada was hanging over the area.
WUSA9 reported that local resident Greg Pirio said the generators started at 8:15 p.m., and by dawn, he said lung pain had driven him from his home to his daughter’s house in Vienna, about 15 miles away.
Because the incident qualified as an emergency under the permit, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Director Michael Rolband told local officials the agency could not stop the operation under current rules. DEQ said inspectors would review the event afterward and respond only if they found the permit had been violated.
