Fox News presents, at the start of the clip, it as due to demand for AI in Virginia, needing a 67 mile power line through Maryland. And lots of people do say it's about AI data centers, despite what the anchor says:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers from multiple states and the District of Columbia has submitted a proposal to PJM Interconnection, the region’s electric grid operator, aimed at curbing rising energy bills amid a surge in data center demand.
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“When there’s not enough capacity to go around in a zone — like during extreme winter storms or hot weather events — zones with data centers that have not yet brought their own capacity will be curtailed first,” Lang-Ree said. “This action will shield the public from blackout risk and save hundreds of billions of dollars.”
The proposal comes as the state seeks to move forward with the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, a controversial plan to build a 67-mile high-voltage transmission line through private properties across three counties to help meet data center demand. Republican state Sen. Chris West said the bipartisan proposal would prevent similar projects in the future.
“New transmission lines can devastate homes, farms, families and entire communities, and those local costs are too often overlooked,” West, who represents parts of Baltimore and Carroll counties, said.
https://www.wbal.com/maryland-lawmakers-push-to-limit-data-center-impact-on-electric-billsMT. AIRY, Md. — Standing in a 40-acre field of Christmas trees, Lisa Gaver traced the path of the high-voltage power line that could one day cut through the heart of her family’s farm.
The 500-kilovolt line would skim a parking lot, cross through the woods and over a metal deer fence, before running diagonally across a field of Douglas firs and blue spruces and continuing as far as the eye could see.
Gaver, a seventh-generation farmer, wants no part of what she and other landowners in rural Maryland call an “extension cord” for data centers in Northern Virginia 50 miles away. She figures that the tens of thousands of patrons who descend on the 150-acre farm annually to pick pumpkins, find their perfect Christmas tree and munch on apple cider doughnuts don’t either.
“It’s going to financially devastate us,” she said. “There’s $4 million worth of inventory in this field.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/maryland-farmers-data-centers-extension-cord-power-lines-rcna233324
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