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The lower growth figure of 17% assumes a rapid reduction in the rate of growth of data center sales, well-below what the state has experienced in the last several years. [...] While this break in the growth trend occurred contemporaneously with the Great Recession, the reasons for the break go far beyond the recession; as we will show shortly, even as the economy recovered from the recession, electricity demand growth in the key demand sectors did not resume until quite The UVA Energy Transition Initiative, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service 3 . [...] Some of the unexpected increase in sales could be due to an acceleration in the expansion of data centers in Virginia above the trend forecast based on data through 2019. [...] In the end, because the increase in data center sales offset the reduced sales due to covid, the covid pandemic did not result in appreciable change in the forecast of electricity sales in Virginia. [...] The growth in electricity demand for data centers in Virginia is accelerating throughout the period from 2010 (our earliest sales data) to the end of 2020, the last period used in this forecast.