FORK UNION, Va.–The Fluvanna County Planning Commission again has delayed a vote on a proposed natural gas plant in Virginia that would bolster the PJM Interconnection regional grid.
The planning commission will review on Jan. 13 a proposal by power producer Tenaska to build a 1.5 gigawatt gas plant. The rescheduling appears to be linked to separate reviews of permit and zoning changes, requested by Tenaska, that, too, are set for January.
Planning commission members did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A company spokesperson said Tenaska asked for the delay in part because some commission members indicated they wanted more review time. The five commissioners will decide whether the Tenaska natural gas plant is “in substantial accord” with the county’s comprehensive plan and if it should advance.
The Tenaska plant would feed into PJM, a pivotal electrical grid in the United States that provides power in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia and has been struggling to meet demands from big technology and financial services companies that are building or planning data centers linked to artificial intelligence.
Among the planning commission’s considerations: whether the location of the Tenaska plant fits with the county’s goals on renewable energy generation, preservation of rural landscapes and economic development.
The commission’s vote will be an advisory to the County Board of Supervisors, which has final approval.
This month, the county’s planning staff submitted a positive report about the Tenaska proposal, aimed to be completed in 2031, and its compatibility with the comprehensive plan.Tenaska, a privately held company based in Nebraska, is seeking to add what it calls the “Expedition Generating Station” next to an already existing one gigawatt gas plant.
The planning staff found that Tenaska’s plans, wholly reliant on fossil fuel, do not advance the county’s aim to expand renewable energy use. But Tenaska provides other notable benefits, the staff concluded. The company plans to conserve acres of land near where the plant will be located, and the plant itself accounts for a small percentage of the land that Tenaska owns, the report found.
Tenaska’s current operations provide for 4 percent of the county’s tax base, and Expedition will add to that, the report found. The company estimates its new station will contribute $8.3 million in annual tax revenue for the next 30 years.
Tenaska has operated the existing plant, located in close proximity to a pipeline operated by The Williams Companies, since 2004.
Its Expedition proposal comes as PJM Interconnection, which operates the wholesale electricity market and manages the transmission grid for much of the east coast, is attempting to spur supplies across the region and notably in the state of Virginia, which is experiencing swift data center growth.
The Tenaska proposal has drawn mixed reactions from the local community. At a planning commission meeting in October that lasted for seven hours, family members of Tenaska employees described the existing plant as safe and reliable. “Tenaska is Corporate America done right,” said Amber Kidd, whose husband works at the plant.
Other residents raised concerns about the new construction—citing worries about noise and truck traffic—and questioned the strain on water sources and possible pollution from the expansion.
“When we’re talking to strangers, people at grocery stores or other places, we’ve not had anyone go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a really good idea’” said Sharon Harris, a founding member of Fluvanna Horizons Alliance, a local group opposing the plant. “It’s just really hard for us to understand how this is possibly going to be anything that’s healthy and safe.”
The county is expecting a Tenaska-paid traffic study to be completed by Jan. 6, a week before the commission will review the plans at the Jan. 13 meeting, County Attorney Dan Whitten said in an interview.
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Donate Now“Fluvanna County and [Virginia Department of Transportation] will ensure safe configuration of access roads and entrances for anticipated construction traffic,” Tenaska spokesperson Timberly Ross said in an email to Inside Climate News. Parking areas and the storage of construction material will be reviewed by the county, Ross said.
She noted that “air emissions and wastewater discharge” are regulated through state and federal laws. Tenaska has offered to provide, at the request of the planning commission, an environmental consultant to produce an independent third-party environmental report, which will also be reviewed Jan. 13. The work will be overseen by the county but funded by Tenaska, she said.
Tenaska provided the planning commission with a 15-page memorandum on Nov. 14 that outlined federal and state regulations and safeguards, including air quality reviews, that the company said would “protect the residents of Fluvanna County and the region.” The company also provided a three-page assessment dated August 28 from the engineering consultant WSP USA that provided some brief reviews of the site setting, cultural resources, wetlands and habitat surveys.
Tenaska’s proposal is part of a fast-track effort by PJM, which has been criticized for slow processing of requests to connect to the grid. Clean energy advocates said PJM’s effort to speed up its reviews now favors fossil fuels suppliers rather than renewable sources.
PJM spokesperson Daniel Lockwood countered that delayed renewable projects “are being stymied by issues beyond PJM’s control, like federal, state and local permitting, supply chain backlogs and financing challenges.”
The comprehensive plan is important to some residents who have been vigilant about attending planning commission meetings. During a meeting this month, and after a presentation on commission duties, resident Tracey Smith told commissioners that they had a duty to pay attention to what residents wanted.
The community took the comprehensive plan process “seriously because we’re told it matters,” Smith said during the meeting. She questioned whether the commissioners were focused or genuine in their considerations of residents’ concerns. She wondered if they were serious about following the protections set out in the county’s comprehensive plan.
“To hear tonight that it is basically optional and something that can just be brushed aside or thrown out, whenever it’s inconvenient for you, it feels like a slap in the face to every resident who has continued to participate in that process,” Smith said before the commission voted to delay its review of the Tenaska plant.
“If the path is already predetermined, then I think you should just be upfront about that instead of asking for our input.”
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Virginia Correspondent
Charles Paullin is a Richmond, Virginia-based reporter focusing on energy and environment issues. He’s won several awards for his previous work covering state policy with the Virginia Mercury and local news with the Northern Virginia Daily in the Northern Shenandoah Valley. His first reporting gig was with the New Britain Herald in Connecticut, a couple years after attending the University of Hartford, where he first studied sports journalism.
