Wait, This Substation Hasn't Been Approved??

Over the past several days we have been reviewing PJM planning materials related to the proposed Joshua Falls–Yeat transmission project, and a key issue has emerged involving the relocation of the Yeat substation.

Moving the Yeat substation is not a minor adjustment. As we now understand, the original planning concept placed the Yeat facility in Fauquier County near existing transmission infrastructure, most likely the parcels connected to Yeats Drive. The current Valley Link materials instead show a large new substation complex proposed in Culpeper County. Relocating a major 765/500 kV endpoint in this way represents a significant scope change, because the endpoint of a transmission line determines the entire corridor between the two stations.

PJM planning materials dated February 3, 2026 acknowledge that “Valley Link is evaluating options for relocating the Yeat substation further south… next steps are for Valley Link to finalize location…and for PJM to perform the required reliability studies.” Those materials appeared just days before Valley Link mailers, dated February 12, were sent to residents announcing the project with the Culpeper endpoint already assumed.

Based on the most recent Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee (TEAC) discussions, PJM’s planning process for evaluating the relocation appears to still involve additional analysis. If that is the case, then the relocation itself may still require PJM’s formal planning review before being incorporated into the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan.

This raises important questions:

1. Why is Valley Link subjecting communities to the anxiety and disruption of a major transmission proposal when the endpoint relocation itself may still be undergoing PJM review?

2. Why are Valley Link outreach materials presenting the project to residents as if it is already fully approved or inevitable, when PJM’s own planning documents indicate that additional reliability study work may still be required due to the relocation of the Yeat substation?

It is difficult to see how the “required reliability studies” referenced by PJM could have been completed within the nine-day window between the February 3 planning materials and the February 12 community mailers. If the location of the proposed Yeat substation is still undergoing reliability analysis, the public deserves transparency on when that work will be completed and how the relocation will ultimately be addressed in PJM’s Regional Transmission Expansion Plan.

Planning materials also indicate that the Yeat location could eventually serve as a major transmission hub moving power north toward the Northern Virginia grid.

Concepts discussed in the 2025 RTEP planning cycle include connections such as:

• Joshua Falls – Yeat (765 kV)

• Vontay – Yeat (765 kV)

• Heritage – Yeat (765 kV)

• Kraken Loop and related 765k transmission expansion concepts

If constructed, this configuration would make the Yeat site one of the largest transmission interconnection points in the region, with the potential for future expansion. A true “super substation” given its proximity to two natural gas lines that could make this a prime location for one of Dominion’s seven planned power plants.

This helps explain why decisions about the location of the Yeat substation are so significant. Moving a facility designed to connect multiple high-voltage lines can shift the impacts of entire transmission corridors from one set of counties to another. That is precisely why this project should be placed in Northern Virginia. In the counties that wanted these data centers to begin with.

Don't make Central Virginia the "sacrifice zone."

#BlockValleyLink