Valley Link unveils revised routes for $1 billion transmission line project as resistance ramps up

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - A project that would bring more than 100 miles of high-voltage transmission line corridor to Central Virginia is taking on a new shape, as resistance grows across the impacted counties.

Valley Link, a joint venture between Dominion Energy and other energy companies, has unveiled revised routes for the proposed $1 billion Joshua-Falls to Yeat transmission line, which would stretch from Campbell County to Culpeper County.

While Valley Link says the revised routes will have a smaller impact on Central Virginia communities, those opposed to the line disagree and are pledging to continue the fight against it.

“Our position has been, and will continue to be, not to us, not to our neighbors, and not to anyone,” said Amy Crawford, who co-owns a pesticide-free flower farm in Buckingham County. “In this community, we are all banding together and standing shoulder to shoulder.”

In order to meet what Valley Link says is the highest energy demand in Virginia since World War II, the utility coalition is planning to build 765kv transmission lines - the highest voltage in the state - that would be anywhere from 135 to 165 feet tall. At all points throughout the approximately 115-mile route, the lines would need to clear about 200 feet of land.

Valley Link released its original proposed routes back in February, and has held open houses in impacted counties as it prepares an application to the State Corporation Commission.

Craig Carper, a spokesperson for Valley Link, says the revised routes reflect the feedback they’ve received online and in person at those open houses.

“This is essentially a better version of the previous map,” Carper said. “It’s impossible to build big infrastructure projects without some impacts, but we want to work as hard as possible to reduce impacts.”

But Michael Barber, a Senior Energy Infrastructure Policy Analyst with the Piedmont Environmental Council, says the cumulative impacts of the project haven’t changed. In order to build the infrastructure, Valley Link says it wants to work with community members to obtain their land through voluntary easements, but as a “last resort,” would try to seize the land through eminent domain.

“Folks are concerned about the overall aggregate impact to land use, the changes to forested and farmlands throughout the routes, impacts to property values, development pressures down the road resulting from this line,” Barber said. “The bigger picture, I don’t think, has changed too much.”

Crawford says both versions of the routes would run directly through her flower farm, cutting through a creek and clearing out a huge swath of trees. Even if the line didn’t run through her property, Crawford says, she’d still “110%” fight against it.

“Folks move to Buckingham because of the freedom and the rural character, and the beauty and the tight-knit community that’s here,” Crawford said. “The thought of all of that being destroyed by a power line that doesn’t serve us, that is really for the data centers in Northern Virginia, it was heartbreaking.”

29News asked Carper Wednesday how much of the increased energy demand driving the project can be attributed to data center growth, particularly in Northern Virginia.

“The majority,” Carper said. “It’s not to say there aren’t other drivers. In fact, there are other drivers. It’s possible that maybe we’re doing this a few years earlier than we would need to without data centers, but we still need larger and more robust infrastructure. The project is needed for yes, data centers, yes large industrial and manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, but also population growth, also the electrification of everything.”

With those factors combined, Carper says, the project is “so urgently needed.”

“From where we sit, we have a legal obligation to meet the demand,” Carper said. “This is not a question of if this project gets built, it’s a project of how it gets built.”

Barber, though, says he doesn’t believe Valley Link has adequately explored other options.

“This is a massive amount of land conversion that we’re talking about here,” Barber said. “We’re interested in what the alternatives could have been as far as electrical solutions to provide the same grid reinforcement but not put folks’ properties at risk, not put land use at risk throughout the Central Virginia corridor.”

Valley Link currently estimates the project will cost about $1 billion, which will be distributed among ratepayers across PJM, the organization that manages the power grid for 13 states, including Virginia. In 2025, the State Corporation Commission created a separate rate class for Virginia’s largest energy users, including data centers, though it does not become effective until 2027.

Barber says he wants to see data center companies foot the bill.

“The Orange County Board of Supervisors is reviewing the changes in Dominion Energy’s transmission route and will continue to represent our citizens and their interests against this massive negative project,” Nicol wrote. “Dominion Energy/Valley Link are rushing and ramming through these transmission lines and process with little substance and inadequate information for impacted citizens.”

McDonald, whose land would have been impacted by the original proposed routes, says he was surprised to see how much Valley Link physically moved the map.

“A whole new set of people, a set of folks that probably received a letter in February or March, looked at the maps, and said I’m not really affected, so they threw it in the trash can,” McDonald said. “Some of them are waking up to the transmission line slicing right through their property...I’ve told them welcome to the club. Membership is not optional.”

McDonald says an “organic campaign” has been brewing within each of the nine impacted counties to take the issue to court, working to prevent Valley Link from using eminent domain by arguing that the infrastructure is for the benefit of “private, hyperscale data centers” instead of the public good. He also told 29News Wednesday that despite the SCC having final approval over the entire project as a whole, Culpeper County and Campbell County have the power to block the substations being built within their own territory.

“People are confident that they can beat this,” McDonald said, “more and more confident that we can stop this thing, and I see that every day.”

Carper, on the other hand, says the project is desperately needed and they’ll continue to push for a project completion date in 2029. Valley Link will be holding another round of open houses in early June - you can find the complete list here.

“It does stabilize the grid as a whole,” Carper said. “We live in a rapidly growing world, and we know that some of these people have purposefully decided to be in a rural setting because they like that way of life and they want to live in a place that’s beautiful, and we hope to honor that and respect that.”

In the meantime, Barber says, the Piedmont Environmental Council will continue to work with communities to keep the fight alive, not just for the Joshua Falls to Yeat project, but for any others in the future.

“We think that this Central Virginia corridor is going to bear an outsized portion of the electric infrastructure needed to support this data center growth,” Barber said.

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