Dominion Virginia Power and the Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC) are planning to study options to improve reliability on one high-voltage line from Remington to Warrenton in Fauquier and another in Gainesville.
On Thursday, both the companies announced plans to create a community advisory group to undertake the study for the Warrenton-Wheeler-Gainesville project.
The first line, which is facing reliability problems, is NOVEC’s 115,000-volt Wheeler line in the Vint Hill area, which feeds through Dominion’s Gainesville substation on Balls Ford Road, reported Insidenova.
NOVEC spokeswoman Priscilla Knight said it’s an older line, which serves 16,000 customers and, though it hasn’t had a power outage in 10 years, it is already overloaded.
Dominion spokeswoman Le-Ha Anderson said the Gainesville substation is also nearing capacity and if any outage happens, it could be dramatic.
"The substation would lose 75,000 customers for hours or even days," Anderson added.
The other line, which requires upgrade, is the 115,000-volt transmission line from Dominion’s Remington Power Station to the Warrenton substation.
Power companies have proposed two options to upgrade the lines and create a regional loop.
The first option, at an estimated cost of $75m, will upgrade both the Remington and Wheeler lines to 230,000 volts and link them together.
The second option, at an estimated cost of $95m, will rebuild the existing Remington and Wheeler lines for a double circuit, increase the voltage of both to 230,000 volts and link both to a substation in Loudoun County.