What direct benefit will NextEra’s MidAtlantic Resiliency Link power transmission project provide to Monongalia County and its residents in trade for clearing a 200-foot swath through up to 13 miles of countryside?

Members of the Monongalia County Commission asked that question several different ways Wednesday when they sat for a work session with Kaitlin McCormick, the project’s senior director for NextEra Energy Transmission MidAtlantic

To paraphrase the answers – that’s yet to be determined, and it’s for the greater good.

The MidAtlantic Resiliency Link is a 105-mile stretch of 500-kilovolt transmission lines that will run from Greene County, Pa., to Frederick County, Va.

The county commission was first notified in December that Monongalia County falls within the area being considered for the “major highway for energy and electrons.”

While the final route has yet to be selected, some residents within potentially impacted counties — Monongalia, Preston, Mineral, Hampshire and Jefferson counties in West Virginia — have started turning up the heat on local elected officials to take a public stand against what they see as little more than a massive extension cord being pulled across West Virginia to plug in power-hungry data centers in northern Virginia.

To be clear, NextEra needs no approvals or support from counties. The backing it needs will ultimately come from the West Virginia Public Service Commission, which is where the political pressure lands as counties along the potential route say they want out.

Since May 27, commissions in Hampshire, Preston and Mineral counties have issued resolutions opposing MARL in their counties. The Monongalia County Commission has yet to take a public position.

When pressed for local benefits, McCormick primarily hammered the point that the project has been identified by grid operator PJM as necessary to ensure reliability in the face of growing electricity demand and aging infrastructure.

As part of PJM’s 13-state territory, McCormick continued, West Virginians will benefit from that increased reliability.

“A more resilient electric grid can help minimize the likelihood of power outages and blackouts. Winter and summer peaks continue to place increased strain on the current electric grid,” McCormick said. “Just recently, there was a heat wave in this region, and in fact, on June 24, PJM experienced the highest load that it’s had in over a decade within the system.”

While McCormick said the MARL project would support “ongoing technological advancements,” she stopped short of engaging in discussion of data centers, which groups like the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis have identified as the primary beneficiary of the MARL project.

A data center is a physical room, building or facility that houses IT infrastructure for building, running and delivering online applications and services. A single center can match the power draw of a metropolitan area. Northern Virginia is the data center hub of the East Coast.

The facilities are the backbone of our always-online existence and increasingly in demand as advancements like artificial intelligence continue to push the need for additional capacity.

According to the IEEFA, electricity demand across the PJM territory has remained relatively flat for nearly two decades. That’s changed the last three years almost exclusively to the rise of data centers, which accounted for more than one-quarter of Virginia’s electricity consumption in 2023.

Asked why the power couldn’t be pulled from a source closer to where it’s needed, in northern Virginia, McCormick said, “There is a lot to this project. The project is providing reliability benefits to the entire region. It is not simply providing any single load or user with electricity.” 

Throughout the meeting, members of the commission addressed a number of NextEra’s talking points, noting the jobs created by the project would be temporary and filled from “the broader region,” not necessarily Monongalia County or even West Virginia. 

Further, Commissioner Sean Sikora said the tax revenue dollars estimated for Monongalia County by NextEra aren’t worth “seeing our county severely impacted by this and seeing our citizens severely impacted.”

“I look at things from a cost-benefit analysis and I’m struggling with the benefits. I really am. And I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I’m just trying to understand the overall benefit to Mon County. We, as a state, get used a lot. You know, we’re very proud of what we have here in Mon County. Our residents are very proud of their properties,” Sikora continued. “We’re concerned, and we echo their concerns about what the impact is to our community. It’s hard to find a benefit.”

It was noted during the meeting that Monongalia County has two power plants and West Virginia is a net exporter of power onto the PJM grid.

Asked whether West Virginia ratepayers — and ratepayers across the PJM region — would ultimately foot the bill for the project via rate increases, McCormick explained it would fall to PJM and the PSC to make that determination.

“For the most part, I don’t see a large benefit from it in Monongalia County, and that’s primarily what we’re interested in,” Commission President Jeff Arnett concluded. “That’s what we’re tasked with protecting, and that’s who we’re tasked with serving.”