Western Loudoun Power Line Proposal Stirs New Community Concerns | News | loudounnow.com
Loudoun County residents already mobilizing to oppose Dominion Energy’s consideration of plans to build major new transmission lines along Rt. 7 may face another challenge as plans emerge to build more lines across the county.
The Piedmont Environmental Council is holding a meeting at the Hillsboro Old Stone School on Thursday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. to brief residents on a proposal to feed more power into Ashburn’s Data Center Alley with lines that could cross Waterford’s National Historic Landmark and skirt Leesburg.
PJM Interconnection, the company that coordinates power transmission in Virginia, is developing an updated service plan to help meet the needs of data center growth, generator retirement, and new generation resource capacity. Dominion Energy announced last year that it faced challenges delivering enough electricity for new data center projects.
The latest PJM planning effort, which solicited 72 proposals from Feb. 24 to May 31, includes a proposal by Florida-based NextEra Energy and Ohio-based First Energy to bring 500 kV transmission lines that will cut diagonally across western Loudoun County to bring in power from West Virginia.
PJM’s Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee, which provides advice to aid the board in the development of its Regional Transmission Expansion Plan is expected to vote Dec. 5 on whether to recommend approval of a collection of proposals across the organization’s 13 state region, including the one affecting western Loudoun.
The PJM board is then expected to vote at its meeting Dec. 11 on the proposals.
“The proposed route for this line segment goes through several national scenic and historic trails (Harpers Ferry National Historic Park and the Appalachian Scenic Trail), and intersects public lands and conservation easements,” a PJM November Constructability and Financial Analysis Report states.
The document states that another segment of the route goes through “highly developed residential and commercial developments as well as state and local conservation easements” and crosses the Washington and Old Dominion Trail.
The proposal includes a single circuit 22-mile 500 kV overhead transmission line from a new substation planned along the West Virginia border north of Winchester to a point east of the Appalachian Trail where it joins with a second 25-miles-long segment to a new substation to be located between Brambleton and Reston. For approximately 80% of the first segment, the line uses existing right of way, rebuilding the Stonewall-Feagan’s Mill-Millville-Lovettsville 138 kV lines as double 500/138 kV double circuit and expanding the right of way by 30 feet. The remaining 20% of the segment will use new greenfield, or new-build, rights of way with a corridor width of 115 to 165 feet.
The second segment would parallel current 500 kV lines for a half mile before continuing on its own greenfield ROW to the station between Brambleton and Reston with an expected right of way width of 165 feet.
The routes are approximate because the routing process begins with a starting and end point. After layering land use constraints and opportunities, the remaining routing options are evaluated.
PEC Senior Land Use Field Representative Tia Earman said she is concerned about the effect the lines will have on Northern Virginia’s agritourism that residents have spent decades cultivating.
“[The project] is cutting through the heart of western Loudoun wine country,” she said. “No one wants to really sit in a winery that’s under high voltage [transmission lines]. They will deeply impact sightlines.”
She said another concern is that no steps have been taken to halt data center production in Loudoun County.
Dominion Energy representatives, during an Aug. 17 meeting of the Loudoun Reliability Engagement Group, said the efforts by that company to mitigate the transmission constraints only address already approved and current data centers. It does not address the transmission needs if more data centers are approved by local leaders.
“We’re still not doing anything to slow down or take into account how much power we’re adding,” Earman said. “Residential usage is down, but the state on the whole is climbing astronomically.”
She said the planned transmission lines from the Midwest will be bringing coal-produced energy into Loudoun County, which the PEC has concerns about, as well.
Through years of effort and billions of dollars of investment, Loudoun County has become home to the largest data center market on the planet. That has also meant huge influxes of tax revenue for the county government, mostly from the property tax on the computer equipment inside. The county’s fiscal year 2024 budget, which began July 1, anticipates almost $561 million in revenues just from that tax. For context, the county government’s General Fund, which includes almost all county government operations, is $841 million, part of a larger $2.7 billion annual operating budget that covers both the county government and schools. That’s even before considering real estate taxes on the land beneath those data centers.
Dominion Senior Economic Development Market Specialist Dominic Minor said during an LREG meeting Aug. 17, 2022, that the increase in energy demand from data centers was historic. From 2019 to 2021 energy demand in Northern Virginia increased by 1,000 MWs, equivalent to approximately 250,000 homes, he said according to minutes from the meeting.
According to a presentation by PJM, “Data Center Loads within Northern Virginia has been increasing at an unprecedented rate (2022 Summer Peak recorded 21,156 MW)” above the forecasted 20,424 MW.
The Nov. 30 community meeting in Hillsboro will include a PEC presentation on the history of the data center industry and the transmission line project details, as well as a question and answer session. Register to attend for free here.
On Tuesday, Nov. 28, Dominion Energy plans a community meeting at Belmont Middle School in Lansdowne to collect input on its Loudoun County transmission line projects. That meeting is scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.