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Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project

6/21/2024

15 Comments

 
Well, here's another particularly noxious transmission project weed!  The so-called "Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project" or MPRP.  This industry loves its acronyms!

In 2023, regional grid manager PJM Interconnection devised a suite of new electric transmission projects designed to import new electricity supplies to new data centers in Northern Virginia, and for Frederick County's new Quantum Loophole project.  Data centers use so much electricity, it's equivalent to large cities sprouting up overnight in previously rural places.  New cities need new power supplies, especially because Maryland has been closing all its baseload power plants that run on fossil fuels.  Before Maryland's recent plant closures under their "clean energy" plan, the state was importing 40% of the energy it used.  Now, it needs even more imports!  We're heading toward more than 50% of Maryland's electricity being imported from neighboring states via new high-voltage transmission lines.  The only two states in the PJM region that generate more electricity than they use and can export to Maryland are West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  The MPRP is importing electricity from southeastern Pennsylvania.  Other new transmission projects are exporting electricity from West Virginia's coal-fired plants to Loudoun County's "Data Center Alley.  It's nothing more than a series of enormous electric extension cords for data centers.  In PJM's planning process, it looked like this:
Picture
Frederick County was sleeping the sleep of the uninformed throughout the planning and approval process at PJM.  And now it has manifested.

The project was assigned by PJM to New Jersey utility Public Service Enterprise Group.  Why them?  PJM put its new project requirements out for bid, and PSEG submitted the best project for PJM's needs.  PSEG also offered a certain price for the project.  There's more to this, but let's stop there for now.  Since PJM approved this project and assigned it to PSEG last December, PSEG has been busy devising a route for the project, and now they have finished and want to share it with the public.

PSEG will be holding public "open house" meetings across the project area early next month.  See website for details.  The "meeting" is hardly an actual meeting though.  It's a series of information stations the public is supposed to file through, and you may be handed a card to fill out with your thoughts at the end of the meeting.  Each little station will be populated with PSEG representatives, and you can ask them questions.  But there is no formal presentation or Q&A session where everyone can hear each question and answer.  Go ahead... ask different representatives the exact same question and get wildly different answers.  This is why utilities hold these kinds of meetings.  They will tell you what they think you want to hear, and not be held accountable for any of it.  The main purpose of the "meeting" is to introduce preliminary route maps to the impacted community and receive feedback that could help guide the final route that PSEG files for approval of the Maryland Public Service Commission.

This preliminary route map is floating around social media.
Picture
Not a lot of detail, but it's a damn sight better than PJM's initial map as far as determining where they expect this project to go.  At the open house meeting next month, PSEG will have the detailed aerial maps that you want to see.  The maps may present numerous short route segments that can be pieced together to create a route.  They may ask what you think of them.  Most people will reject routes that impact them, and may be tempted to champion routes that do not.  But, throwing your neighbor under the bus to save yourself is never a good strategy.  The community must come together to oppose ANY of these routes.  If data centers need new electricity supplies, they need to build new power generators near the data centers, instead of plowing through communities that won't receive any benefit.  

The MPRP will likely need new rights-of-way 150-200 feet wide for its 500kV transmission line.  The company will ask landowners to sign easements for a one-time "fair market value" payment for just the land in the easement.  This gives PSEG the right to use your land, but you will still own it and pay taxes on it.  The easement payments are compensation for land you can no longer use, they are not a windfall or profit.

The MPRP website is chock full of propaganda and small bits of information that impacted landowners need to really investigate.  For instance, the website says:
​The MPRP is a 500,000-volt (500 kV) transmission line designed to respond to growing electric needs in Maryland and the surrounding region. Transmission reliability is key to supporting Maryland’s energy future.
They don't tell you that the project is only necessary because of enormous new data center load.  If we didn't build the data centers, or if we built new electric generation near the data centers, this transmission line would not be necessary.   It's not for you, it's for data centers.  This project also has NOTHING to do with clean energy.  It will actually increase carbon emissions in neighboring states that will have to produce more power using fossil fuels in order to import it to new data centers in Maryland and Virginia.

​Here's another:
  • Will PSEG want access to my property before I agree to grant an easement for the project?
  • ​PSEG may request prior access to conduct preliminary work such as a survey, delineate wetlands and/or conduct an appraisal to determine the amount of land needed and the value of an easement. In that case, the land owner will be asked to sign a right of entry document allowing PSEG onto the property for only these limited purposes.
State law allows utilities to access property for limited survey purposes before easements are signed.  However, PSEG wants landowners to sign a document permitting all sorts of surveying and testing, including things that may harm your property, like core drilling.  Think twice about signing this document and giving PSEG unfettered access to do whatever it wants on your property before they have paid you a dime.  Maryland law already gives them access for surveying that doesn't harm your property.  You don't need to sign any document or give them further permissions.

I also didn't notice the words "eminent domain" on MPRP's website, but that's exactly how they intend to acquire land from unwilling landowners.  Easement offers are nothing more than coercion... sign and take the money... or else.  When there's no opportunity to say no, it's not voluntary land acquisition.

PSEG's website, its open house meetings, and its permission forms and easement agreements are written in the company's best interest, not yours!

The best use of PSEG's open house meeting will be the opportunity it gives you to meet new folks who are similarly affected by this project and to exchange contact information and hold further meetings among yourselves to share information of interest to landowners who want to defend themselves against this transmission project.  PSEG is not from here, it doesn't know your community, and at the end of the day it doesn't care what happens to it.  They can't see it from their house in New Jersey!

It's time to circle the wagons, Frederick County!  Later this year, PSEG may file an application with the Maryland Public Service Commission.  When that happens, you have the right to intervene and become a party to the case that can submit testimony and cross-examine utility witnesses with the goal of convincing the MPSC to deny a permit for this project.  There will also be public hearings held by MPSC where you can speak out against it.

Meanwhile, get engaged and stay current on project news.  Talk to your neighbors and others in the community who may be impacted.  Make a plan. Maybe I'll see you at the open house...
15 Comments
Patti Hankins
6/21/2024 03:03:41 pm

The MPRP also impacts Carroll County and Northern Baltimore County. It brings PA electricity from Chanceford Township via the Three Mile Island-Peach Bottom 500kV transmission line from a new 500kV tap line and an expanded ROW on an existing transmission line. It will cross into MD from PA near Stewartstown PA and interconnect just off West Liberty Road in Northern Baltimore County.

Reply
Wendy
7/5/2024 04:50:11 am

Thank you for your efforts.

Reply
Christina
7/5/2024 07:17:44 am

Please let us know what angles we have to stop this. May the author of this page message me privately to my email? I'm a Carroll County homeowner and very concerned for our community.

Reply
Emily Detterman
7/6/2024 06:38:24 am

Has quantum loophole addressed the environmental abuses that were found back on April 25, 2024? I see a response from Paul Haus to the WUSA9 article “My commitment to you and skeptics is we will improve. We will get better and do better.” It looks like everything is moving forward when the environmental impact hasn’t been resolved.

Reply
Emily Detterman
7/6/2024 06:49:58 am

Also, to add onto my environmental topic, is the Maryland Farmer Bureau or any farm association aware or involved at all? I would assume they would have a big voice in the environmental impact especially if clean water is being contaminated, that would be a source for them to use during droughts.

Reply
Ruth Bell
7/12/2024 10:58:37 am

Maryland Farm Bureau was the first to inform us. The email the information on July 5. The Carroll County Farm Bureau met with the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project team about the routing alternatives phase for a Project of energy expansion through Carroll and surrounding counties.

The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP) was presented to the Board as



"a critical system (grid) enhancement (update) that has been awarded to PSEG by PJM, the Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) responsible for operating and planning the regional electric grid in all or parts of thirteen states, including Maryland.

The MPRP is a 500,000-volt (500 kV) transmission line designed to respond to generation retirements and growing electric needs in Maryland....The new overhead line will be built in Maryland’s Piedmont Plateau region. The approximately 70-mile proposed transmission route spans three counties, westward from the connection point within the existing Baltimore Gas & Electric transmission line right-of-way in northern Baltimore County, through Carroll County, and into the existing Doubs 500kV Station in southern Frederick County. The project is expected to go into service (when the project delivers power) in June 2027. "

Reply
Montagf
7/7/2024 11:30:58 am

Thanks for all your work.

Reply
JB
7/7/2024 02:50:00 pm

This is devastating news for so many families affected. I hope there is a way to beat this.

Reply
Steve
7/8/2024 05:48:17 pm

thanks for the efforts and information, public hearings are being held in Westminster Thursday 7/11 2-4pm and 6-8pm 125 Stoner Ave,

Reply
Donna Hemling
7/9/2024 09:32:22 am

i’m shocked to hear of this and want to know all about it

Reply
Kim C.
7/9/2024 09:52:16 am

So unfair to Pennsylvania and West Virginia residents to lose their land and property values to be the cheap date utility closet for the east coast.

Reply
Judith M. Smith
7/9/2024 12:22:27 pm

Carroll County has virtually NO notice of this...please recommend some information of tracing this back to its initial stages

Reply
Jeff T Mezzullo
7/9/2024 02:31:58 pm

Please if you are in Carroll County go to the meeting Thursday at the Senior Center 125 Stoner Avenue

Reply
Judith M. Smith
7/12/2024 07:07:43 am

please provide information for better communication from us with your group of how to deal with this situation to have some hope to stop this ....or have a whole lot more imput and control over our destiny

Reply
Virginia Woolridge
7/14/2024 01:54:11 pm

Say no to privatized profits and socialized costs - including the detriment of our land, air and water.

Reply



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    About the Author

    Keryn Newman blogs here at StopPATH WV about energy issues, transmission policy, misguided regulation, our greedy energy companies and their corporate spin.
    In 2008, AEP & Allegheny Energy's PATH joint venture used their transmission line routing etch-a-sketch to draw a 765kV line across the street from her house. Oooops! And the rest is history.

    About
    StopPATH Blog

    StopPATH Blog began as a forum for information and opinion about the PATH transmission project.  The PATH project was abandoned in 2012, however, this blog was not.

    StopPATH Blog continues to bring you energy policy news and opinion from a consumer's point of view.  If it's sometimes snarky and oftentimes irreverent, just remember that the truth isn't pretty.  People come here because they want the truth, instead of the usual dreadful lies this industry continues to tell itself.  If you keep reading, I'll keep writing.


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