In August I wrote in these pages that Buckingham County was “not short of fight. It is short of a place to put it.” The bill for the Joshua Falls to Yeat line had been divided in Washington, the State Corporation Commission could not divide it again, and the hearings ahead could argue about where the line goes but not about who pays. On Oct. 29, PJM, the regional grid operator that chose the line, posted numbers that give the counties along the route something new to ask.
PJM’s materials for its Nov. 3 planning committee meeting raise the estimated cost of Valley Link, the set of high-voltage projects that includes Joshua Falls to Yeat, from $3 billion in 2024 dollars to $5.1 billion in 2026 dollars. All 14 of its projects were due June 1, 2029. All 14 now show later dates. The line and its Yeat substation are now set for Jan. 17, 2031. In August, after the route was cut from 156 miles to 115 and the Yeat substation moved, PJM put the line and that substation at $753 million. Its November table puts the same pieces at $1.56 billion, in 2026 dollars.
Campbell County’s part is not in that table. The relocation of Appalachian Power’s Joshua Falls substation, where the line begins, appears in a separate PJM spreadsheet posted for the same meeting. Its estimate is $225.5 million, up from $99.1 million when the plan was to expand the existing station rather than move it. Its required date is June 1, 2029, and the spreadsheet shows no revised date. The new line it will connect now shows 2031.
PJM lists the reasons for the higher price: labor, materials and equipment, and right-of-way and land costs “which continue to increase at unprecedented multiples.” None of it changes the formula that decides who pays. That formula divides the bill among utility zones across PJM’s 13-state region, and on the shares now in PJM’s tariff, Dominion’s customers carry about 45% of the line. The formula divides whatever number arrives.
What has changed is that a schedule has slipped, and PJM has a rule for that. Its operating agreement, the rulebook its members sign, says that if a developer PJM selected through its competitive window “fails to meet a milestone in the development schedule” and that “causes a delay of the project’s in-service date,” PJM “shall re-evaluate the need” for the project. It may then keep the project, remove it from the regional plan, or “include an alternative solution.” Any change PJM makes under that rule has to go to its planning committee “for review and comment” and be approved by its board.
That is a question about need under PJM’s own rules, and PJM is the one that has to answer it. Every date in Valley Link’s table has moved, the line’s by more than a year and a half. PJM attributes the new dates to “more detailed routing analysis, expanded stakeholder and regulatory engagement” and permitting work. In July it said one reason for moving the Yeat substation was “to enhance schedule certainty.” The dates slipped anyway. PJM’s November materials do not say whether the rule applies, or whether the milestones in Valley Link’s agreement with PJM were simply moved to fit the new dates.
A second question sits inside the first. PJM chose these lines to fix reliability problems it said had to be solved by June 2029. In July, PJM concluded that the shortened line “continues to address the identified reliability violations.” That was before the $5.1 billion estimate and the 2031 date. If the problems arrive in 2029 and the line in 2031, something has to cover the gap. Elsewhere in its August materials, PJM’s answer to a similar gap was “operational measures.” Its November materials do not say what would cover this one, or for how long.
Campbell’s supervisors voted in October to oppose the line, and other localities have done the same. They, and the landowners who will be asked for easements, can put five questions to PJM in writing now. PJM has listed the Joshua Falls relocation for its board’s review this month, so the time to ask is before the board acts. Did Valley Link miss a milestone in its development schedule? If the schedule was changed instead, when and on whose request? Has PJM re-evaluated the need for the project, as its own rule requires when a missed milestone delays it? What covers the reliability problem between 2029 and 2031? And will the Joshua Falls substation, which shows no revised date, be built for 2029 when the line it serves is not due until 2031?
None of these questions asks PJM to stop the line. They ask it to follow its own rule and show its work at the new price and the new date. In August the counties’ fight had nowhere to go. It has an address now, and the rule behind the questions is written in PJM’s own words.
Tommy N. Turner is an independent researcher who documents the local government and energy side of data center expansion in Virginia, and the author of the Virginia Data Center Series. He serves on the advisory board of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation study at Emory University on data centers and the Southern energy buildout; the study did not fund or review this piece.
