Company explores Kemptown powerline

Proposal may bring high voltage line to area in 2013

Thursday, March 30, 2006

by Patrick Dunne

Staff Writer

If approved, a new high voltage power line could run straight through Kemptown. Allegheny Power hopes to build a $1.4 billion series of power lines to connect substations near Weirton, W.Va., and Kemptown.

The power line hasn’t been detailed or researched, but in February, Allegheny Power requested approval to research the power line route from PJM Interconnection, a company that plans power-line routes in the Mid-Atlantic states.

‘‘It’s not a line that anyone can say right now will be built. It’s our idea of how the transmission system should grow,” Allegheny Power spokesman Allen Staggers said this week.

The company needs to expand its network of power lines, he said, to help grids that are approaching their capacity.

PJM is an independent company that operates the largest electricity market in the world, according to its Web site. It extends to parts or all of Washington, D.C., and 13 states including Michigan, Maryland and Tennessee. PJM updates a regional growth plan every six months and coordinates with several electricity providers such as Allegheny Power and Pepco so new power lines work in concert.

Ray Dotter, a spokesman for PJM, said Allegheny Power submitted the request for the line as part of PJM’s Regional Transmission Expansion Plan. The process evaluates future lines and improvements to existing grids so electricity will be available to satisfy future demands.

Energy companies used to plan power lines and generators to serve their own customers, he said, not for the entire electric network.

‘‘We know that what someone does to the water upstream affects the quality everywhere else,” he said. Power companies are the same way, he said, and the best solution for more power may not be in one company’s service area.

For approval
A $1.4 billion high voltage power line would span the Allegheny Power service area from West Virginia to Kemptown.
PJM Interconnection expects to approve or deny initial plans in June.
Engineering could begin in 2007 and power line construction could see progress by 2013.

The 330-mile route would go a long way to lessening congestion in the Baltimore-Washington service area, he added.

Dotter likened the congested power grid to highway traffic.

‘‘Sometimes there’s problems at rush hour and you can solve that maybe by adding a lane here or there, and there are some times there’s so much traffic that the only way to solve it is to build another highway or a bypass,” he said. ‘‘That’s what [Allegheny Power] is essentially proposing, a bypass.”

Staggers said the company would like to draw more power from the Midwest states and Ohio Valley, rather than build new power plants and generators in the current system.

Dotter said the power line plan would receive comments from PJM stakeholders other power companies involved in the region plan process. It would receive final approval from the PJM board of directors.

The board of directors, he said, could request that Allegheny Power investigate other routes.

‘‘Obviously this takes time,” he said.

The initial approval could come in June, when the region plan update goes before the PJM board. It could be another year or two before Allegheny Power’s line could start construction.