Loudoun County homeowners are fed up with data center noise, and diesel fumes could get worse

For many Virginia homeowners, the growth of the digital economy has come with unwelcome side effects: a constant industrial hum and, at times, the smell of diesel exhaust.

After a recent power failure at a data center campus in Loudoun County, residents said an already troubling quality-of-life issue became even harder to ignore.

What happened?

According to 7News, people living near Vantage Data Centers' Ashburn II facility in Sterling have been pressing county leaders about ongoing noise from the site and fumes from generator operations that they say disturb sleep and affect their health.

Neighbors say the campus emits a continuous hum even during normal operations. They told 7News that after a July 16 outage shifted the three data centers on the 18-acre site to auxiliary diesel power, the situation became much worse.

One homeowner told the outlet, "I always know when they're running their diesel generators because it irritates my throat and my lungs, and I've even woken up at night. This data center has been a curse on our life here."

"Vantage Data Centers is committed to being a responsible neighbor and take community feedback seriously," the company told 7News. "Once power was fully restored, use of the backup generators ended as per our operating policy."

The developer added, "DEQ has reviewed actual operating data from VA2 over recent years and confirmed emissions have remained well below permitted levels established to protect public health."

The county's deep investment in data centers is part of the backdrop to the dispute. Loudoun already has over 200 operating data centers, with about 100 more being developed, and officials say the sector supplies a whopping 45% of the county's budget through tax revenue, per 7News.

Why does it matter?

Residents say the issue includes constant noise, interrupted sleep, and air-quality concerns tied to emergency generator use.

And as electricity demand puts more stress on the grid, largely driven by data centers, Dominion Energy has warned the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors that backup generators may need to be used more often, 7News reported. That could mean additional bursts of noise and localized pollution when utility power is not available.

AI-related infrastructure often requires enormous amounts of electricity and water, puts pressure on local grids, contributes to rising energy costs, and introduces concerns related to security, misuse, and unintended social consequences.

In places like Loudoun County, some of the burdens of the nation's growing digital infrastructure are felt most directly by the people living closest to it.

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