Tennessee Valley Authority is running more than 100 power poles between West Point and Artesia to power the incoming aluminum mill, with residents’ homes and protected areas potentially affected.
TVA unveiled the details of the project Nov. 14 at an open house in The Civic community center, speaking with dozens of potentially impacted residents to figure out which path would be the least disruptive. Residents can submit comments and advice there until the public comment period closes Dec. 16, with planners on hand to answer questions.
Eighteen miles of new lines and metal poles would connect the Clay Substation in West Point and the Artesia Substation in Lowndes County, enhancing reliability in the region and supplying power to the $2.5 billion mill Aluminum Dynamics aims to open in summer 2025.
Clay substation already provides 500 kilovolts of power, but as of now, customers around the southern 161-kilovolt Artesia substation can’t access it because there aren’t durable enough power lines between the two, according to TVA documents.
Adding better lines will help the growing industrial area access that power, and connecting the two substations will allow one to pick up the slack if the other needs maintenance, said Shane Beasley, TVA’s manager of transmission siting.
“With residential and commercial growth in the area, we need some increased transmission capacity,” Beasley said. “To be able to serve the load and to have the flexibility, operationally, to do routine maintenance. This project will accomplish that. It’s a TVA system project, but our distributor 4-County also has a large interest, because it might help them for some future plans they have for their system.”
Joe Max Higgins, CEO of the Golden Triangle Development LINK, confirmed the line’s purpose is to provide power to the plant.
The aluminum mill will be located on 2.3 million square feet beside Charleigh D. Ford Drive. Under the umbrella of Steel Dynamics, the roller is the first of its size built in the U.S. since WWII, helping the plant melt down more than 2 billion pounds of scrap to repurpose for the canning, automotive and alloy industries.
Higgins also said he hopes the connection will eventually help in the development of Cinco, a new megasite planned on over 1,500 acres north of Highway 82. The Lowndes County board of supervisors and Lowndes County Industrial Development Authority invested $250,000 each to survey the site in July. The site would provide around 700 new jobs.
“We’re intimately aware of the project,” LINK COO Meryl Fisackerly said in a statement. “The Golden Triangle Regional Airport area is or will be home to some of TVA’s largest customers. The region is robust with numerous power feeds serving the park, and additional power sources are being studied to support Cinco.”
There is a network of about 35 alternative line segments and about 67 alternative line routes under consideration for the location of the new line, according to the project website. The network is categorized into three main groups: West, Middle and East.
Beasley said even within those proposed routes, planners will work with property owners to try and minimize the project’s impact.
TVA will announce its preferred route spring 2025, with surveys and easement purchasing running through spring 2026 and construction wrapping up fall 2027. TVA hopes to have the line functional by spring 2028.
TVA will buy easements from property owners for the project, purchasing the right to install its infrastructure and access it for maintenance, Beasley said. Those do typically place some restrictions on what owners can do with the property as well for the duration of the easement.
During the open house, Charlie Pilkinton expressed some apprehension for the plan, but seemed cautiously optimistic after speaking with TVA planners. His family has owned property along one of the proposed routes for 173 years, recently building two houses just 50 feet from where the line would run if that route is chosen.
Pilkinton seemed somewhat reassured by promises from TVA planners that they would work with residents and avoid running lines over their homes.
“There are a lot of good things going on in the area. Industrial development has been very beneficial to the whole Golden Triangle,” Pilkinton said. “It’s not that we don’t want them to have a power line. We’re just trying to find the best route for everybody.”
TVA won’t hold another open house in person, Beasley confirmed, but all the information presented is available online at TVA.com under the “Get Involved” tab.
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