PATH developer willing to delay line consideration

The developers of a multistate power line project said Wednesday they are willing to delay a regulatory decision on their $1.9 billion project until January 2011 to make the three-state review process more efficient.

The offer was in a filing with the West Virginia Public Service Commission. The filing was in response to last month's staff recommendation that the application to build the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline, or PATH, be dismissed or delayed past next June's statutory deadline.

The staff's request followed a similar one filed by Virginia's State Corporation Commission staff reviewing PATH's application in that state.

Staff in both states argued since Maryland dismissed PATH's application in September, the 765-kilovolt power line would have a starting point, but no ending point. They also argued any decisions on the line should be delayed until electrical power need projections are updated in February.

Allegheny Energy and partner American Electric Power have proposed building the 275-mile line from AEP's coal-fired John Amos plant in Putnam County, across parts of northern Virginia, to a substation near Kemptown, Md. In Wednesday's filing, PATH lawyers said Kemptown remains the line's planned end point.

Maryland's Public Service Commission dismissed the application saying the companies created to develop the line were not an electric utility under Maryland law. The ruling gave Allegheny Energy subsidiary Potomac Edison until Oct. 9 to refile the application.

PATH lawyers said a decision whether to refile the application, or take the issue to the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission, is forthcoming.

In Wednesday's filing in West Virginia, lawyers for PATH said Maryland's decision "complicated" their efforts to win approval for the line in all three states.

PATH lawyers said they would be willing to extend West Virginia's decision-making deadline from June 22 to Jan. 25, 2011, as long as the schedule for non-electrical need issues remained intact. Under state law, an application must be decided upon with 400 days of its filing, unless the time is extended.

Delaying the decision deadline would be more "administratively efficient" since the state commissions could review the latest power need projections developed by PJM Interconnection, which manages the grid system for a 13-state region, PATH lawyers said.

"Finally, Applicants believe this revised schedule will provide a much greater chance of cohesion of the need presentations in the three states than the current schedules in West Virginia and Virginia," PATH lawyers said.

A similar request to delay a decision on the line would be filed in Virginia, they added.

The PSC has yet to act on its staff's dismissal recommendation. Agency spokeswoman Sarah Robertson said the commission "is taking all of this into consideration and will proceed as it sees best according to its statutory obligation."