The Line Hearing Moved. The Route Did Not.

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JACKSON — Residents who marked Jackson High School on the calendar for the Baku-Gavin transmission hearing should cross it out. The Ohio Power Siting Board moved the Oct. 27 session to the Jackson Middle School auditorium, 21 Tropic St. It is still at 6 p.m.

AEP Ohio Transmission Company wants to build about 51 miles of 765-kilovolt line between a planned Baku Substation in Pike County and the existing Gavin Substation near Cheshire in Gallia County. The case is 26-0426-EL-BTX. The company filed July 24. The board certified the application complete on Aug. 28.

The stated customer is a data center campus planned in Piketon, on the former gaseous diffusion plant site. AEP and the siting board say the data center has committed to pay for the transmission built to serve it, so the cost is not added to other Ohio ratepayers’ transmission bills. A dollar figure for the line itself has not been published in the notices.

The route, if approved, crosses Marion, Union and Scioto townships and Stockdale in Pike County; Bloomfield, Franklin and Scioto townships in Jackson County; and Cheshire, Huntington and Morgan townships plus the village of Vinton in Gallia County. People may give sworn comment at the local hearing. A separate adjudicatory hearing, limited to parties, is set for 10 a.m. Nov. 5 at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, 180 E. Broad St., Columbus.

Earlier this year AEP held open-house meetings in Piketon, Jackson and Vinton while routes were still being compared. A related Hanging Rock–Baku project, about 33 miles of new 765-kilovolt line from Lawrence County, is on a later schedule and is a different filing.

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