Campbell County joins opposition to $1B Valley Link power line
Campbell County supervisors voted 4-3 on Oct. 6 to oppose the Joshua Falls-Yeat line, a $1 billion, 765-kilovolt project that would run about 115 miles to Culpeper County.
Campbell County supervisors voted 4-3 on Tuesday, Oct. 6, to adopt a resolution opposing Valley Link's Joshua Falls-Yeat transmission line, a roughly $1 billion, 765-kilovolt line that would run about 115 miles across Central Virginia. Campbell is the most recent county in the line's path to go on record against it; Cardinal News counts eight counties now opposed.
Valley Link is a joint venture of Dominion Energy, FirstEnergy Transmission and Transource Energy, itself a partnership of AEP and Evergy. The line would start at Appalachian Power's Joshua Falls substation in Campbell County and end at a new Yeat substation in Culpeper County, crossing Appomattox, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa and Orange counties along the way. Towers could reach 160 feet, with 200-foot-wide cleared rights-of-way. Valley Link says the line is needed to serve data centers, population and manufacturing growth, and grid reliability.
Campbell's resolution says the line is "driven largely by data center development and general load growth outside our region" and "provides no direct energy benefit" to the county. Only about two-tenths of a mile of the line would actually cross Campbell, according to Appalachian Power. The county administrator described the resolution as a statement of the county's preferences to the State Corporation Commission, not a binding action.
County boards have no formal say over the route. The SCC approves the siting of large transmission lines, and Valley Link plans to file its application, including a final proposed route, this fall. The project's target completion is 2029. Culpeper adopted its own opposition resolution in April and is updating its comprehensive plan to limit high-voltage lines near homes and natural resources.
Campbell may still have some leverage. Appalachian Power wants to move the Joshua Falls substation to a nearby agricultural property, which would need a special-use permit or rezoning from the county. The utility has not yet submitted that plan. The same substation sits across the James River from the roughly 250-acre Amherst County site where developer Geenex Power is proposing a nuclear plant of up to 650 megawatts.
The line is one of the largest pieces of new grid infrastructure proposed to serve Virginia's data center-driven power demand. County resolutions cannot block it, but they shape the record before the SCC, which will decide the route.
What's next
- Fall 2026 Valley Link expected to file its SCC application with a final route
- Not yet filed Appalachian Power request to Campbell County to relocate the Joshua Falls substation
- 2029 Target completion