Data centers in Monongalia County, West Virginia: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Monongalia County has no privately proposed data center of the size drawing scrutiny elsewhere in West Virginia; the county's only tracked project is the federal government's own. The National Energy Technology Laboratory is building a Computational Science & Engineering Center on its Morgantown campus, consolidating the lab's existing data centers into one building with a server hall for its Joule supercomputer, NETL says; construction is underway. County Commissioner Sean Sikora told The Dominion Post in August 2026 that no private developer has offered terms worth taking: "I have to ask whether the community hosting these hundreds of acres of infrastructure and absorbing its impacts receives an adequate return, and I haven't been shown a model yet that tells me that."

Sikora and Delegate Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, both criticized House Bill 2014, the 2025 state law under which certified high-impact data centers are exempt from county zoning, noise rules and building permits. Hansen said the law takes most tax revenue from the host county, though 30 percent stays there. Sikora said a separate 2009 law taxing high-technology property at 5 percent salvage value could cost the county about 38.5 percent of the property tax it would otherwise collect if such a project came.

The county is still drawn into the state's data center build-out. In July 2025 its commission voted to oppose NextEra's MidAtlantic Resiliency Link, a proposed 105-mile power line through Monongalia and Preston counties to a data center in Frederick County, Virginia. "They want to shove this thing down our throat and say oh by the way you also get to pay for it and you don't get benefit from it," said commission president Jeff Arnett. FirstEnergy has also begun permitting a 1,200-megawatt gas plant at Maidsville, beside the Fort Martin coal plant, to meet demand a company vice president said could come from a single large customer.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.