Your input is making a difference!
This text was taken from an email alert sent out on December 18, 2025. Sign up for email alerts →
Dear Supporter,
We want to update you on the State Corporation Commission (SCC) hearings, begun in September, about the proposed “Golden to Mars” electric transmission line. You may recall from our earlier email that the Golden to Mars line is an unprecedented high-voltage line planned for eastern Loudoun County that would cut through residential neighborhoods and environmental resources, including a stream and wooded areas, to provide more power to an area called Data Center Alley. The proposal has generated significant controversy and concern among residents and community members, who will be impacted by the decision.
In September, we sent an email encouraging you to submit comments and to sign up to testify at the hearings to voice your concerns and call for undergrounding the line, and you rose to the challenge!
Over 1,000 comments and nearly 600 witnesses signed up to testify, flooding the SCC with concerns about the potential impacts of the proposed line to their neighborhoods, communities and the environment.
You have one last opportunity to weigh in on this important case before the end of the year! The SCC has extended the deadline for written comments about the proposed line to Tuesday, Dec. 30. See below for an update on the SCC hearings and PEC’s testimony.
For more information on the proposed Golden to Mars transmission line, visit the project timeline on our website.
Community Members Make Waves at SCC Hearings
At the September hearings, members of the community filled the auditorium at Rock Ridge High School with hundreds of neighbors and 80 speakers, including multiple government officials, to tell the SCC that Dominion’s plan doesn’t work.
In a strikingly unified message that also spoke to deep personal impacts, almost everyone advocated for undergrounding this data center-driven line or otherwise avoiding neighborhoods. Despite hours of time hearing from the public, many people who had signed up did not get the chance to speak. Those people were required to re-register if they wanted to testify by telephone at the virtual hearing on Dec. 15.
To fit in all those who have requested to speak on this issue, the SCC is currently taking verbal testimony from the nearly 600 registered speakers through December 19. Unfortunately, the high number of speakers has reduced the time per speaker to only 2 minutes, but it has also extended the timeline to submit written comments to Tuesday, Dec. 30.
Submit Comments by Dec. 30
If you have not yet submitted comments, you still have time to make your concerns known! The outpouring of public opposition to this proposed transmission line is incredible and is getting noticed by the SCC, so now is not the time to let up, but to keep the pressure on!
Your specific comments on the personal impacts that this proposed transmission line would have on your life are helpful. It’s also important to note the unfair precedent this sets for residential neighborhoods and other businesses to not only bear the community impact, but to also pay a large portion of the cost for the future transmission lines needed to serve the explosive data center energy demand in our state.
The SCC needs to hear from you to help inform its final decision in January!
Talking Points: Use the talking points on our website to help make your comments as persuasive as possible, focusing on one of six key topics.
Our Testimony: Unrestricted Data Center Development is Driving More and More Transmission Lines
As part of our testimony to the SCC, PEC submitted the map below to demonstrate the alarming amount of data center development that is driving the need for this large, 500kV transmission line through a suburban community. If localities continue to approve data center development in an unconstrained manner—and there continues to be no state oversight—more lines like this could affect neighborhoods throughout the state and beyond.
Earlier this year, PEC joined the Board of Supervisors, school board and several government representatives in calling for the line to be partially underground to minimize the impacts on residents. As an official intervenor on this case, PEC provided testimony focused on the need for additional mitigation, or reducing the impacts of the line through any appropriate means, including but not limited to:
- Undergrounding the line.
- Alternative designs that:
- meet height restrictions and
- allow the lines to be built closer to the airport.
Importantly, we emphasized that the need for this line is being driven by data center energy demand and that the incremental costs associated with mitigation efforts should be paid for by the high load customers driving the need for the lines, not all of the electric utility’s customers, aka residents and small businesses.
Why this SCC is important
We feel this case is precedent-setting in that the power demand from this industry is greater than the state has ever experienced, and large voltage transmission lines like a 500kV are not typically routed through dense suburban communities and neighborhoods.
In other words, we expect these types of proposals to become more frequent, and what the SCC decides here in terms of mitigation/avoidance of impacts to residents, and how those additional costs are paid for, will set the tone for the many additional projects that will be necessary to feed the skyrocketing energy demand of this industry in our state.
Why it’s important to speak up
Existing neighborhoods across Loudoun, and beyond, could also be facing these challenges in the near future. A united community stance sends a strong message to regulators that industrializing residential neighborhoods is inappropriate and data center companies should cover any and all mitigation—such as undergrounding lines where necessary—to avoid harming their residential neighbors.
Further, no matter which neighborhoods end up physically impacted, everyone will pay the cost. Losses will occur not just to neighborhood character and the environment, but directly to residents’ pocketbooks. Under the current rate structure, all ratepayers are subsidizing the cost of this expensive infrastructure—for data centers that aren’t even up and running yet.
We hope you will submit comments before the deadline on Dec. 30.
Thank you for staying informed in your community, and please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions. We will continue to share any new information with you as needed.
Regards,
Julie Bolthouse, Gem Bingol and Emily Johnson
Julie Bolthouse
DIrector of Land Use
[email protected]
540-347-2334 ext. 7042
Gem Bingol
Land Use Senior Field Representative – Loudoun County
[email protected]
540-347-2334 ext. 7041
Emily Johnson
Land Use Field Representative – Loudoun County
[email protected]
540-347-2334 ext. 7044