Jefferson County is going to need a new slogan for roadside signs soon. I suggest the above, maybe bolstered by some fine print... "All the electricity that makes Loudoun the wealthiest county in the nation comes through here first!" What is Jefferson County getting from all this? Homes and businesses taken using eminent domain, multiple huge new transmission lines of the highest voltage built in the U.S. in close proximity to our homes and schools, and higher electric bills. What does Loudoun County get? Data centers, lots and lots of new "economic development" data centers. Loudoun County ended 2024 with a budget surplus of over $250M, thanks to all the data centers it has approved and built. Loudoun County gets the gold, and West Virginia gets the shaft. Again.
When are West Virginia lawmakers going to *wake up* and realize that we don't have to export the electricity generated here using our coal and gas resources? We could use it right here to increase our own economic development! Instead, we've been shipping the excess power we generate out of state so other areas can get rich using it to attract economic development like data centers. Why not create incentives for data centers to locate here in West Virginia, right next to our existing generators? West Virginia could finally start growing its own tech industry and use its plentiful resources to attract new business. Data centers are hungry, hungry, hungry for steady, dispatchable electricity and promoting West Virginia as the ideal location for new data centers is win-win for West Virginia. Exporting our electricity to Loudoun County over huge new high-voltage extension cords is lose-lose for West Virginia.
Yesterday, PJM Interconnection's Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee met for more than 4 hours. A handful of intrepid electric ratepayers and citizens attended to make comment and ask questions. At the end of the day, PJM stuck with its previous recommendation to order and build another new transmission line through Jefferson County. Last year, PJM ordered the building of a different transmission line through our county. Over the past two years, PJM has ordered two new major transmission lines crossing through Jefferson County on their way from West Virginia coal-fired generation stations to Loudoun County's data centers. Yesterday, PJM informed us that it will be opening two more bidding windows in mid-2025 to solicit even more power lines for Virginia's data centers. PJM is having trouble keeping up with Virginia's data center demand, and the only place with available power left is West Virginia. Funny that Virginia hates our coal-fired power stations, and Virginia is on target to meet its VCEA requirement to reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2045, but Virginia has no problem at all importing more and more coal-fired electricity to use in its data centers and pretending they're still meeting their environmental goals because it is not generated in Virginia.
The project PJM will be recommending to its Board of Managers for approval is a new 765kV transmission line beginning at the John Amos coal-fired power station in Putnam County, and crossing 14 West Virginia counties on its way to data center alley (Putnam, Kanawha, Roane, Calhoun, Braxton, Lewis, Upshur, Barbour, Tucker, Preston, Grant, Hardy, Hampshire and Jefferson) 3 counties in Virginia (Clarke, Frederick and Loudoun) and end in Frederick County, Maryland at a new substation south of Point of Rocks. If you want to see maps of where this project will be routed in Jefferson, find them here. Here's PJM's awful maps and listing of the project's components.
When are West Virginia lawmakers going to *wake up* and realize that we don't have to export the electricity generated here using our coal and gas resources? We could use it right here to increase our own economic development! Instead, we've been shipping the excess power we generate out of state so other areas can get rich using it to attract economic development like data centers. Why not create incentives for data centers to locate here in West Virginia, right next to our existing generators? West Virginia could finally start growing its own tech industry and use its plentiful resources to attract new business. Data centers are hungry, hungry, hungry for steady, dispatchable electricity and promoting West Virginia as the ideal location for new data centers is win-win for West Virginia. Exporting our electricity to Loudoun County over huge new high-voltage extension cords is lose-lose for West Virginia.
Yesterday, PJM Interconnection's Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee met for more than 4 hours. A handful of intrepid electric ratepayers and citizens attended to make comment and ask questions. At the end of the day, PJM stuck with its previous recommendation to order and build another new transmission line through Jefferson County. Last year, PJM ordered the building of a different transmission line through our county. Over the past two years, PJM has ordered two new major transmission lines crossing through Jefferson County on their way from West Virginia coal-fired generation stations to Loudoun County's data centers. Yesterday, PJM informed us that it will be opening two more bidding windows in mid-2025 to solicit even more power lines for Virginia's data centers. PJM is having trouble keeping up with Virginia's data center demand, and the only place with available power left is West Virginia. Funny that Virginia hates our coal-fired power stations, and Virginia is on target to meet its VCEA requirement to reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2045, but Virginia has no problem at all importing more and more coal-fired electricity to use in its data centers and pretending they're still meeting their environmental goals because it is not generated in Virginia.
The project PJM will be recommending to its Board of Managers for approval is a new 765kV transmission line beginning at the John Amos coal-fired power station in Putnam County, and crossing 14 West Virginia counties on its way to data center alley (Putnam, Kanawha, Roane, Calhoun, Braxton, Lewis, Upshur, Barbour, Tucker, Preston, Grant, Hardy, Hampshire and Jefferson) 3 counties in Virginia (Clarke, Frederick and Loudoun) and end in Frederick County, Maryland at a new substation south of Point of Rocks. If you want to see maps of where this project will be routed in Jefferson, find them here. Here's PJM's awful maps and listing of the project's components.
| new_path_765.pdf |
PJM's awful maps are insisting that the "new PATH" project will be constructed on "existing ROW or parallel to existing ROW" indicated by the pink line on the map. Elsewhere in PJM's presentation was the statement that the new 765kV development would require 100% new right-of-way. That's right... the new PATH will require a completely new 200 ft. wide right-of-way (ROW). PJM and the new PATH sponsors are trying to pretend that they can create a new 200 ft. wide ROW directly adjacent and parallel with the existing transmission line corridor in Jefferson County. PJM believes there is value and risk reduction in a parallel line siting. That might be true, if there was actually land available parallel to the existing ROW, but there's not. The existing ROW is lined with homes, schools, businesses and even new solar farms. A new 200 ft. parallel ROW will destroy everything in its path. For this reason, I insisted that PJM at least draw its "new PATH" correctly on its awful, out of proportion map as a new greenfield corridor. PJM refused. We can't even get a little honesty.
Who is PJM fooling? Not us! PJM is trying to fool its Board of Managers by telling them that nobody will mind this new 765kV transmission line and that it won't be taking any new land. PJM thinks this will make the Board more likely to approve this project as non-controversial. We're not going to let that happen, but that's another blog post coming soon -- writing to PJM's Board of Managers to insist they deal with the truth about this project.
As part of its creation of its new transmission plan, PJM is required to create a "Constructability and Financial Analysis Report" for the proposed projects to present to their Board when seeking approval. PJM's Constructability Analysis is a complete joke! The report starts out by detailing the "Approach", or method, of performing this study.
Who is PJM fooling? Not us! PJM is trying to fool its Board of Managers by telling them that nobody will mind this new 765kV transmission line and that it won't be taking any new land. PJM thinks this will make the Board more likely to approve this project as non-controversial. We're not going to let that happen, but that's another blog post coming soon -- writing to PJM's Board of Managers to insist they deal with the truth about this project.
As part of its creation of its new transmission plan, PJM is required to create a "Constructability and Financial Analysis Report" for the proposed projects to present to their Board when seeking approval. PJM's Constructability Analysis is a complete joke! The report starts out by detailing the "Approach", or method, of performing this study.
| constructability_analysis_approach.pdf |
The approach calls for PJM to do an "in-depth" review of each project's ROW acquisition, land acquisition, and siting and permitting requirements, among others. As part of this, PJM is required to do a "desk top" investigation of each project's land use mapping (using actual maps!) to include:
- Residences within 100 feet (count)
- Residences within 250 feet (count)
- Land zoned conservation (acres)
- Public land (acres and count)
- Number of parcels crossed
- Listed and eligible historic structures
- Listed and eligible historic districts
- Listed and eligible archeological sites
These are just a few of the things that must be studied as part of this Constructability study. Did PJM do that? No, they didn't. PJM simply copied the narrative written by the project sponsor in its bid for the project and turned a blind eye to the actual impacts of this "new PATH" 765kV transmission line.
Here's what PJM's Constructability Study concluded about the project:
Here's what PJM's Constructability Study concluded about the project:
| constructability_report_excerpts.pdf |
There's absolutely nothing in there about any of the development bordering the existing corridor they want to expand. Perhaps if it doesn't have to acknowledge the destruction of Jefferson County's built community, then PJM can continue to believe that a parallel siting is somehow less risky than a new line somewhere else.
PJM negligence becomes even more glaring if you read the analyses of the other projects that were not selected. Some of these other projects have very detailed narratives of how they will affect the built community. Read it for yourself (full report).
Here's just a couple examples that caught my eye:
- Page 77 - expansion of ROW would include residences that would "show great opposition." (Expansion of ROW in Jefferson would include residences, but no mention).
- Page 64 - mention of historic government and landowner opposition (Jefferson did this with original PATH, but no mention).
- Page 73 - mention of "affluent community" that would oppose the project.
- Project #286 is drawn as a greenfield (new ROW) project although its narrative says it is paralleling existing ROW its whole route. (Compare to Jefferson being drawn as "using existing ROW.")
- Project #967 was evaluated tower by tower to determine what was adjacent to the existing ROW.
- Concerns about certain projects because they would be 200-300 miles of 500 or 765kV towers, therefore eliminating those projects. (New PATH is 261 miles of 765kV towers but was not eliminated).
- PJM used proposed NIETCs as a factor in its evaluation (projects in NIETCs were preferred). The NIETCs were cancelled December 16, but the report was not updated to reflect.
PJM also evaluated these projects based on the proposer's experience building similar lines. In its report, PJM said that FirstEnergy (proposed owner of new PATH) passed this test. When I questioned PJM about what 765kV lines FirstEnergy has ever owned or built, PJM said they were actually using the experience of another company, Transource (an AEP affiliate). When asked how many 765kV lines Transource has ever owned or built, PJM again came up empty. Ditto on Dominion. The ONLY utility with this experience in the country is American Electric Power (AEP), parent company of Transource. PJM's constructability analysis is not based on reality and has enough holes in it to drive a truck through. The truth is that PJM simply FAKED this report based on biased information it was given by the project sponsors and didn't perform any analysis at all. If this isn't true, then PJM is encouraged to produce the desktop study with all the required data and make a liar out of me. PJM's Constructability Report is pure, unadulterated CRAP.
I also questioned PJM about whether the "new PATH" project was actually competitively bid. Since 2011, FERC has required regional grid planners like PJM to open competitive bidding windows when it needs new transmission projects. The idea is that utilities will compete with each other to create the best project at the least cost. Bidders often include "cost caps" and other financial considerations that limit the costs to consumers. PJM has been running these bidding windows for around 10 years now. The big investor owned utilities did not like these windows because they don't want to have their profits limited by having to compete for projects. So, the utilities started building smaller, local, supplemental projects that did not have to be approved by PJM as a way to avoid competition. Because of this, there were pretty much no opportunities to build new transmission using competitive windows. Therefore the utilities did not have to compete. If you try to thwart the deep rooted greed of investor owned utilities, they will eventually find a way around whatever roadblock you construct. And now they have figured out a way around PJM's competitive bidding window. The three biggest utilities in PJM got together ahead of time and came up with a scheme to limit competition and increase profits with their joint bid into this window. FirstEnergy, AEP's Transource, and Dominion submitted "joint proposals" that did not have any cost caps or financial considerations for ratepayers. If they didn't have to compete with each other, then they could score a project with an unlimited price tag. Of course, this kind of behavior to limit competition and fix prices is what's known as a cartel. Once the three utilities had their project selected, they have now decided to create a shell company "joint partnership" to own the projects because PJM cannot award a project submitted as a joint proposal to individual companies (that would violate FERC's rules!) Reality is that this "competitive" window was illegally controlled by a cartel.
Last month, I sent an email requesting that PJM come to Jefferson County and give us a presentation about what it is they do so we can find out about their processes. This was in response to a disparaging comment one of the PJM staff made to a Jefferson County citizen, telling her to "get a basic education" before asking questions at the TEAC.
This month, PJM came prepared with a long list of online "resources" that we can use to educate ourselves.
I also questioned PJM about whether the "new PATH" project was actually competitively bid. Since 2011, FERC has required regional grid planners like PJM to open competitive bidding windows when it needs new transmission projects. The idea is that utilities will compete with each other to create the best project at the least cost. Bidders often include "cost caps" and other financial considerations that limit the costs to consumers. PJM has been running these bidding windows for around 10 years now. The big investor owned utilities did not like these windows because they don't want to have their profits limited by having to compete for projects. So, the utilities started building smaller, local, supplemental projects that did not have to be approved by PJM as a way to avoid competition. Because of this, there were pretty much no opportunities to build new transmission using competitive windows. Therefore the utilities did not have to compete. If you try to thwart the deep rooted greed of investor owned utilities, they will eventually find a way around whatever roadblock you construct. And now they have figured out a way around PJM's competitive bidding window. The three biggest utilities in PJM got together ahead of time and came up with a scheme to limit competition and increase profits with their joint bid into this window. FirstEnergy, AEP's Transource, and Dominion submitted "joint proposals" that did not have any cost caps or financial considerations for ratepayers. If they didn't have to compete with each other, then they could score a project with an unlimited price tag. Of course, this kind of behavior to limit competition and fix prices is what's known as a cartel. Once the three utilities had their project selected, they have now decided to create a shell company "joint partnership" to own the projects because PJM cannot award a project submitted as a joint proposal to individual companies (that would violate FERC's rules!) Reality is that this "competitive" window was illegally controlled by a cartel.
Last month, I sent an email requesting that PJM come to Jefferson County and give us a presentation about what it is they do so we can find out about their processes. This was in response to a disparaging comment one of the PJM staff made to a Jefferson County citizen, telling her to "get a basic education" before asking questions at the TEAC.
This month, PJM came prepared with a long list of online "resources" that we can use to educate ourselves.
| pjm_resources_for_education.pdf |
I again requested that PJM give us an in-person presentation, hoping that a meet and greet would help PJM get over their disdain for the ratepayers they serve. PJM said it had not "ignored" my request and that they were busy creating some video tutorial. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it. And PJM never took one second to respond to my email to let me know they were doing something. So, it is true that PJM IGNORED my email.
All that aside, PJM owes us more than a bunch of links to dry, boring crap written by engineers. We are situated in the middle of the only area in PJM that has been targeted for TWO enormous new transmission lines. We share our pain with Frederick and Loudoun Counties, Virginia and Frederick County, Maryland. Why is PJM refusing to explain themselves to communities so profoundly impacted by what they do? It would probably be more educational for PJM to find out that we're people just like them whose lives are going to be destroyed. Is PJM so terrified that it might find a little respect and sympathy in its cold, dead heart? I believe that a little empathy is needed to help PJM remember who it works for so it can do its job a little better. Want to ask PJM to come to Jefferson County and explain itself? Send your request to [email protected] and [email protected].
PJM's Board of Managers will be meeting to consider this "new PATH" project, along with other new projects, at the end of February. We're going to need everyone to send them a letter pointing out all the things that PJM's TEAC got wrong when studying and awarding these projects. More on that soon!
How many new high-voltage transmission line projects through Jefferson are acceptable? One? Two? More? The time has come to take action!
All that aside, PJM owes us more than a bunch of links to dry, boring crap written by engineers. We are situated in the middle of the only area in PJM that has been targeted for TWO enormous new transmission lines. We share our pain with Frederick and Loudoun Counties, Virginia and Frederick County, Maryland. Why is PJM refusing to explain themselves to communities so profoundly impacted by what they do? It would probably be more educational for PJM to find out that we're people just like them whose lives are going to be destroyed. Is PJM so terrified that it might find a little respect and sympathy in its cold, dead heart? I believe that a little empathy is needed to help PJM remember who it works for so it can do its job a little better. Want to ask PJM to come to Jefferson County and explain itself? Send your request to [email protected] and [email protected].
PJM's Board of Managers will be meeting to consider this "new PATH" project, along with other new projects, at the end of February. We're going to need everyone to send them a letter pointing out all the things that PJM's TEAC got wrong when studying and awarding these projects. More on that soon!
How many new high-voltage transmission line projects through Jefferson are acceptable? One? Two? More? The time has come to take action!
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