AI is spurring expansion of high-voltage power lines. Landowners, locals fight back

Sugar Loaf, Pennsylvania — To John Zola, the 40 acres were like paradise: apple orchards nestled in the hills of northern Pennsylvania, a barn, meadows and enough land for four homes: one for him, his wife and each of his three adult children.

It’s been “hell,” however, since a contractor hired by the local power company knocked on Zola’s door in late 2024 and informed him that he planned to build a 500-kilovolt power line across his property.

The 240-foot metal towers would reach 10 times the height of the century-old apple trees they would plow and tower over the Zolas’ homes, the basketball court and the pool where his grandchildren play.

This line and others like it are being planned with increasing frequency in the United States to deliver electricity, sometimes hundreds of miles, to enormous data centers run by the world’s biggest technology companies.

Although advances in artificial intelligence are seen by President Donald Trump as essential to the country’s economy and national security, their energy needs threaten to overwhelm the power grid — and people like Zola are caught in the crossfire.

The local utility, PPL, said it was doing everything it could to balance the impact on people with its obligation to provide electricity and protect the reliability of the grid. But for Zola, all they care about is money.

“They don’t look at whose lives they destroy, nor whose property they destroy,” Zola said.

These high-voltage power lines are the last line in the fight against massive operations by tech companies.

Angry local opposition has formed against dozens of giant data centers, fearing rising electricity costs and irreparable damage to their communities.

Opponents of transmission projects are similarly motivated: They say the lines encroach on the sanctity of private lands and threaten long-term harm to sensitive public lands, farms, property values ​​and pristine waterways — all for electricity they don’t believe benefits them.

Transmission projects have always faced challenges and permitting processes that have dragged on for years, and two decades of relatively stable electricity demand haven’t generated much urgency.

But analysts say the grid remains inefficient, aging and, with high demand, on the verge of widespread outages on the coldest or hottest days. Utilities say any new transmission lines — even those driven primarily by large customers, like data centers or industrial sites — benefit everyone by adding capacity to the grid.

Some members of Congress want to exclude the lines from state or certain environmental reviews, while some tech companies are trying to build their own power plants, or next to one, in part to avoid a quagmire.

These transmission projects are not local power lines on wooden poles. Rather, they are lines installed on steel pylons five or six times higher, transporting bulk energy over long distances.

Some, like the Sugarloaf project that could cross Zola’s property, require 200-foot-wide corridors.

Utility giants predict their spending growth will be driven primarily by transportation projects, with spending expected to double to nearly $50 billion annually between 2019 and 2028.

But the expansion is drawing opposition from landowners, environmental advocates, local officials, consumer advocates and even states.

In the Hill Country of Texas, the Hill Country Preservation Coalition has railed against the construction of the southernmost of three 765-kilovolt lines — the highest voltage used in the United States — that Texas regulators have ordered to cross the state in east-west “highway” corridors.

The coalition’s founder, Jada Jo Smith, calls it a “Goliath” that will be almost impossible to defeat. To at least minimize the damage, the coalition is pressuring state regulators to adopt a different, slightly longer route that follows existing highway corridors.

“Why would you choose a route that could potentially harm our most iconic rivers that we have left in the state of Texas?” » Smith said.

Pennsylvania state consumer advocate Darryl Lawrence is protesting a proposed $1.7 billion line stretching more than 200 miles from West Virginia through half of Pennsylvania.

He questions whether cheaper alternatives are available, whether the demand from the data centers they are designed for will actually materialize and why grid operators want to import electricity into a state that, as a large electricity producer, normally exports it.

West Virginians are also fighting a plan for two transmission lines connecting coal-fired power plants in northern Virginia, home to what’s known as “data center alley.”

In the Midwest Grid Territory, a $22 billion transmission project is embroiled in a months-long fight, as utility regulators in North Dakota, Montana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana urge federal regulators to block it.

“I think you may see more of that,” said Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, which represents independent power plant owners. “These are real dollars and consumers are paying a lot of attention to them. »

Midcontinent Independent System Operator, based in Indiana, told federal regulators in a filing that the lines are needed to meet growing demand from manufacturing and data centers, and that the need for new power transmission “has never been greater.”

In eastern Pennsylvania, Amazon and other developers have so many data center projects in the works that PPL projects its peak electricity demand will more than triple by 2030.

PPL, which serves more than 1.5 million electric customers, says the 12-mile Sugarloaf project will minimize disruption by reusing and expanding a power line corridor that once carried a since-removed residential line, rather than establishing a new corridor.

The utility has offered to pay the landowners for access to their land, but the landowners fear that if they don’t accept, PPL will go to court to use its eminent domain to force a settlement.

The new line would extend perhaps 100 feet from where Zola’s grandchildren sleep at night. In recent days, Zola said holdout landowners have received higher cash offers from PPL.

“My offer went from $17,000 to $85,000,” Zola said. “Just like that. And there’s no money for me. And when you come here, you’ll understand why.”

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Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter