Aug 19, 2026
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Add us on GoogleTechnology’s leading lights have been increasingly vocal about America’s need for more utility grid power.
Exhibit A is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who told a Stanford University computer science class in May that “The amount of energy that we need for [AI] computing is likely probably 1,000 times more than we currently have.”
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Yet it’s less clear who bears the financial and lifestyle costs of building the needed energy infrastructure, and what say Americans have in the debate.
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That’s what residents of three U.S. states impacted by The Valley North Project may be wondering. The project, a power supply joint venture by Dominion Energy, FirstEnergy Transmission and Transource Energy, calls for a proposed 260-mile, 765-kilovolt high-voltage transmission line running from Putnam County, West Virginia, through parts of Virginia to Frederick County, Maryland, and is raising hackles in potentially impacted communities.
Bevin Lewis, who lives on a farm close to one of the proposed Valley North routes where her husband Mark is buried, made her feelings clear about the power line project in an interview with NBC 4 Washington.
“He was my person,” she said. “They’re going right over where I just buried my husband, and I mean, literally this is going to make it so we can’t live here anymore.”
“I have cried so many tears thinking about that,” Lewis noted. “I’m literally losing my life, my lifestyle, the future that we knew we had, that we’ve protected for 252 years. It’ll be gone because of this.”
Multiple county governments along the Valley North Project path, including Clarke County, Virginia, have voted to oppose the project, citing rising community concerns about the power line’s impact on families, businesses and cultural centers.
“While we don’t yet know any specific routes, a project of this magnitude anywhere in Clarke County has the potential to forever change the landscape and character of the County.” Clarke County Chair David Weiss stated in a recent post.
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Meanwhile, project developers are making their own case.
In a June 9, 2026 media statement, Isaac Rhoades, President of Valley Link Transmission Company LLC, a joint venture that’s developing the Valley North Project, said: “The Valley North Project strengthens the region’s electric backbone and addresses a critical vulnerability that could otherwise lead to increased reliability challenges and a greater potential for outages down the road.”
Eminent domain laws are fairly clear on power grid takeovers, but not always
For the Lewis family and other impacted homeowners, there is some financial protection from power grid property takeovers, but other questions remain.
By U.S. eminent domain law, if a transmission line runs through a person’s land, they may be entitled to receive compensation for the fair market value of the land. “If part of a home is seized, homeowners might be eligible to receive the value of the loss,” Ramzy Ladah, trial attorney and founder at Ladah Law Firm in Las Vegas, Nev., told Moneywise.
Yet in some cases it can be difficult to determine the extent of the loss caused by this situation. “Property owners whose homes are next to a large power line but their property is not directly affected are likely in a least desirable position,” Ladah noted. “Buyers are repelled by sight, noise, towers, and overall concerns regarding living in close proximity to the line.”
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Rural communities bear the brunt
While data centers aren’t the only entities fueling energy demand, they’re definitely at the discussion table. Increasingly, rural residents are not.
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“Rural landowners are subsidizing the tech economy, and it’s an obvious geographical imbalance,” Greg Field, owner of Phoenix-based PGT Home Energy Solutions, told Moneywise. “While the data center campus generates billions in tax revenues and job creation for one metro county or tech hub hundreds of miles away, the rural agricultural counties are dealing with destroyed terrain, severed property, reduced property values and permanent visual blight.”
Field believes there’s a better way to solve power grid cost problems, especially as AI data centers advance into America’s farmland.
Instead of burying billions of dollars of new greenfield transmission costs into general rate bases paid by every homeowner across three states, Field says utilities and regulators should require interconnecting technology companies to pay for direct upgrade costs.
“If a tech company needs three gigawatts of custom power infrastructure, then it should be charged directly,” he added.
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A former Wall Street bond trader, Brian O'Connell is the author of two best-selling books: “The 401k Millionaire” and “CNBC’s Creating Wealth.” His work is featured on national finance and business platforms like TheStreet.com, CBS News, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.
