PJM Board Approves $11.8BN Transmission Expansion Plan

By Ethan Howland Of UtilityDive

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.

Like other multi-zone projects in the RTEP, the costs of the project will be shared across PJM’s footprint.

The just-approved plan also includes a $1.7-billion transmission line across central Pennsylvania proposed by NextEra Energy Transmission and Exelon. The project was opposed by Pennsylvania’s Office of Consumer Advocate, which argued that there were less expensive alternatives to the project.

The project addresses system-wide, structural reliability needs in PJM’s northeastern region that cannot be met with incremental upgrades or “terminal-only” solutions, NextEra and Exelon said in a Jan. 29 letter to PJM’s board.

“PJM’s own analyses and the convergence of independent developer proposals, demonstrates that new high-voltage backbone infrastructure is required to maintain reliable service under plausible future conditions,” the companies said. The project is slated to be operating by June 2031.

The transmission plan includes a $1.1 billion project in central Ohio proposed by Grid Growth Ventures, a joint venture between Transource Energy — a partnership between American Electric Power and Evergy — and FirstEnergy Transmission. The project includes 300 miles of 765-kV lines.

Under the plan, PPL Electric will build transmission projects totaling about $580 million, while Exelon subsidiaries Commonwealth Edison and Potomac Electric Power Co. will build projects totaling about $276 million and $292 million, respectively.

PJM’s RTEPs for 2024 and 2023 included $5.9 billion and $6.6 billion in baseline projects.