[PA] PUC to hear case for, against Allegheny Energy power line (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Saturday on hearings about Allegheny Power’s TrAIL plan that will start on Monday:
Forces that have debated the merits for nearly two years of Allegheny Energy Inc.’s 240-mile, $1.2 billion power transmission line proposed for Southwestern Pennsylvania and two other states are set for three weeks of high-voltage testimony.
On Monday, the state Public Utility Commission is scheduled to begin all-day, evidentiary hearings on the proposal at the state office building, 300 Liberty Ave., Downtown.
Administrative Law Judges Michael A. Nemec and Mark Hoyer have been assigned to hear detailed, in many cases highly technical, testimony for and against the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line, known by the acronym TrAIL.
“This evidentiary hearing will give us the opportunity to demonstrate the careful evaluation undertaken to address reliability issues in Southwestern Pennsylvania,” said David E. Flitman, president of Allegheny Power, the power transmission-distribution unit of Greensburg-based Allegheny Power Inc.
The Trans-Allegheny project includes one primary 500-kilovolt line stretching from near Eighty Four, Washington County, into West Virginia, then east to Loudoun County, Va., about 35 miles west of Washington, D.C.
In addition, three smaller 138-kilovolt lines are in the Pennsylvania portion of the project.
Allegheny Energy’s share of the total bill is about $850 million.
“We believe the reliability issues that Allegheny Energy says are the reasons for building the project are not supported in the data,” said Willard Burns, an attorney in the Pittsburgh office of Pepper Hamilton LLP, which represents the Energy Conservation Council of Pennsylvania in fighting the project.
Allegheny Energy contends that except for a 1.2-mile section of the line from the so-called 502 Junction power substation to the West Virginia border, the project within Pennsylvania addresses local electricity reliability needs.
Not everyone agrees with the company’s appraisal.
“We believe that the 500-kilovolt line through Washington and Greene counties isn’t necessary,” said Irwin “Sonny” Popowsky, the state’s consumer advocate. “Our expert witness believes that construction of smaller transmission lines on existing company rights-of-way would be less costly and cause less environmental impact.”
Public Utility Commission Office of Trial Staff analyst Gary Yocca previously testified he doesn’t believe Allegheny Energy has satisfied all applicable statutes and regulations regarding the new transmission line.
Attorney Burns said the PUC’s administrative law judges will make their recommendations on the project to the full commission sometime in June, with PUC decision to come later this year.
The Trans-Allegheny hearings come days after the U.S. Department Energy announced it wouldn’t hold additional hearings concerning its National Electric Transmission Corridor report and order.
The corridors are areas of the country the Energy Department determined as experiencing power transmission congestion, and which offer a wide variety of potential sources of electric generation.
The order forming the corridors was announced last year and immediately was criticized by a variety of politicians, including Gov. Ed Rendell, landowners and environmentalists as overly broad, including huge geographic areas in the Northeast and Southwest.
The Northeast corridor, for example, includes 52 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, with Allegheny Energy’s proposed Trans-Allegheny project included within the corridor’s boundaries.
Rick Stouffer can be reached at rstouffer@tribweb.com or 412-320-7853.