From the Prometheus Institute, February 16:
PJM board approves $11.8B transmission expansion plan
The PJM Interconnection’s board last week approved $11.8 billion in baseline transmission projects, with Dominion Energy’s Virginia utility landing roughly $4.8 billion in those projects.
The projects are part of PJM’s 2025 Regional Transmission Expansion Plan Window 1, which is designed to bolster grid reliability that is strained by accelerated load growth in multiple areas across its Mid-Atlantic and Midwest footprint.
The projects are also needed to handle new generation in southern Virginia, future generation in western PJM, delays to New Jersey offshore wind projects and increased regional flows toward the eastern parts of PJM’s footprint, the grid operator said Friday.
PJM will monitor load and generation in its footprint to make sure needed transmission development is progressing in a timely manner, the grid operator said in its board-approved plan.
“PJM also clarified that siting, routing and regulatory processes, as well as construction, take a long time, and PJM needs the plan to be ready and advanced for the forecasted conditions proactively rather than bringing needed development late, which introduces impediments to development and reliability risks to stakeholders,” the grid operator said.
Meanwhile, transmission costs are making up a growing share of the price of wholesale electricity in PJM.
In 2024, transmission contributed $17.71/MWh to the cost of wholesale power in PJM, up 23%, or 5.8% a year, from $14.40/MWh in 2022, according to reports from Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s market monitor.
Transmission costs totaled $13.9 billion, or 32% of total wholesale costs of $43.6 billion, in 2024, the last full year of Monitoring Analytics’ reporting. Energy costs made up nearly 59% of the cost of wholesale power that year and capacity accounted for 6.6% of the total.
As part of PJM’s transmission expansion plan, Dominion Energy Virginia intends to build a $2.3-billion, 525-kV underground “backbone” transmission line in Virginia. The project, set to be online by June 2032, also calls for building two high-voltage direct current converter stations at each end of the 185-mile line for about $1.5 billion.
The project is designed to deliver 3,000 MW into Loudoun County in northern Virginia, the area with the most data center capacity in the world.....
....MUCH MORE
PJM serves 65 million people in parts of 13 states:
