!! TWO NEW HVAC Transmissions Lines PROPOSED a 500kV AND a 765kV !!

Dominion's  proposal for a 185 mile entirely underground HVDC transmission line to bring energy from the south of Virginia to the data centers in Northern Virginia has made the short list.  

Underground HVDC is obviously technically feasible.  Once again, PJM  referred to this as the "biggest bang for our buck" they explicitly cited that they would be able to use the existing easements and followed up with  all the technical reasons HVDC is the superior choice.  This is the PJM favorite,  even though the HVDC underground solution is 1.6x  times as expensive as the overhead 765kV proposals - $4.8B vs $2.6B. 

We happen to agree its the superior technology,  this is exactly that folks here have been saying, citing multiple recent papers on underground HVDC, readily available and linked on our own Underground HVDC page.   We have been pushing underground HVDC  for MARL/Gore-Doubs-Goose Creek and Valley Link for almost three years now - for all of the exact same technical reasons plus minimising the impact to national parks, state parks, conservation easements and  6,000+ acres  of private property at risk to be taken.   

Portfolio 275 1A, the underground HVDC project, proposed by our state energy monopoly Dominion, from an energy generation facility in Virginia to Dominion's customers in Loudoun County's data center alley will be paid for by the standard rate formula - 50% to the Dominion Zone and 50% spread across the rest of the rate payers in PJM.   This is the status quo.  Other states pay for Loudoun County's economic plan and the energy crisis Loudoun's unconstrained data center development has created.   No state other than Virginia will benefit from this line - but they will pay for it. 

During the meeting, PJM also announced that the 765kV  Valley Link will have a voltage collapse by 2032 - the line they are aware the line they approved last year fails before it is even built.  Obviously the overhead HVAC solutions they have put in place thus far are deficient. Will they re-evaluate MARL/Gore Doubs-Goose Creek and Valley Link for a single underground HVDC solution?   Nah, they will keep pushing First Energys 50 year old I765 corporate expansion plan.  PJM only selects from the pool of projects proposed - no one proposed an underground HVDC during either of those windows so we get multiple massive overhead lines. PJM "picked the best of the proposals that were submitted"  and they are standing by that decision, because they are always right .  Until one of the states denies the line(s) then they will be proven wrong and PJM will have to solicit bids for a new solution in a new window.