Dominion Power Transmission Line

    Dominion Virginia Power has applied with the SCC to build a 65-mile transmission line to alleviate projected overloads of the transmission system in the summer of 2011.  The proposed route is atop or adjacent to an existing power line right-of-way between electric substations in Frederick County and Loudoun County, Virginia. Dominion asserts that the expansion is necessary to accommodate the future energy needs of Northern Virginia. Their proposal would route electricity generated from coal burning power plants in the Ohio Valley through West Virginia to Northern Virginia and beyond.

   Both sides agree that energy needs will be increasing in the future, however the extent of need and how best to address the need (and therefore the capacity of a new line) is in dispute.

   Proponents argue that conservation measures and upgrades of existing lines will not meet the future needs of our region and that the proposed 3500 Megawatt line is the only solution that resolves all the issues. Computer models simulating the northern Virginia growth and possible overloads in 2011 verify the need for the high-capacity line.

   Opponents argue that the proposed line far exceeds the anticipated need of our region. The energy will have been created by pollution-causing coal burning power plants in the midwest, the biggest source of our air pollution here in the mid-Atlantic for which we cannot meet EPA standards. The high-capacity line will require new huge towers (almost double the height of the largest current towers) in sensitive environmental and viewscape areas. The excess power will simply be sold to users downstream, the implication being Virginia will simply be an extension cord for the northeast.

   More information may be found at www.dom.com/news and www.virginiascommitment.org, respectively.

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