ROANOKE, Va., October 10, 2008 – Today Appalachian Power filed with the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) a request to build a $16 million electric transmission reinforcement project in the City of Roanoke and the Town of Vinton. The project is critical to the company’s ability to serve the growing electric demands in central and western Virginia.

The company introduced the Huntington Court-Roanoke Transmission Reinforcement Project in April and identified a preferred route for the 138 kilovolt (kV) transmission line in late summer following months of extensive analysis and input.

The project helps ensure that the electric transmission grid in the area continues to meet national standards for reliability. This 138 kV project and others proposed by Appalachian should protect against projected overloads that could occur in the area as early as 2010.

The proposed transmission line, just over six miles long, connects an electric substation in the Huntington Court neighborhood on Hollins Road and the Roanoke Substation on Riverland Road. In addition to holding a public workshop, company officials met with local and state officials, community representatives and business owners to identify the optimum route for the line. Company officials considered more than 40 segments and 200 potential routes between the two substations before identifying a preferred corridor.

Nearly 90 percent of the preferred route is in areas zoned industrial, while only two percent is residentially zoned. On its northern end, much of the preferred route parallels the Norfolk Southern Railway and Plantation Road before it crosses US Route 460. On its southern end, the project is in the vicinity of Tinker Creek and the Roanoke River near the Water Pollution Control Plant. If approved along the preferred route, the project would require construction of approximately 85, 100-foot-tall transmission poles built on an 80-foot-wide right of way. There are no residences in the company’s preferred right of way.

The company also identified a viable alternative transmission line route north of US Route 460 and is submitting it to the SCC for consideration. 

Public participation opportunities continue in the Virginia SCC process.  If the SCC approves the proposal, Appalachian is hopeful to begin construction in early 2010. The in-service goal for the entire project is June 2011.

Additional information about the Huntington Court-Roanoke Project, including maps, photos, visual simulations, fact sheets and the company’s SCC filing, is available at www.appalachianpower.com/go/huntingtoncourt. The Appalachian’s SCC filing is also available for viewing at the Roanoke County Library – Vinton Branch.

Appalachian Power has about 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined.