Dan Charles

But in a few years, a data center and a substation are supposed to fill this space, about the size of eight football fields.

Wow.

And I'd arranged to meet a couple of people from Dominion Energy here, Ayesha Khan and Rob Richardson.

Have you come out here a lot?

Not for a while.

How about you?

Rob set up a little tablet computer on the hood of his truck to show me the plan.

It's going to be a big power line, big enough to power a small city.

Steel poles, 120 feet tall.

Together with the substation, this project is listed as costing $40 million.

Yeah, so this is an interesting point.

I got slightly different answers from Aisha and Rob about that.

But the data center did ask for this, right?

So honestly, there's really no question it is getting built because the data center needs it.

But Dominion argues that new power lines like this also make the whole power grid stronger and more reliable.

So everybody benefits, and that's why it makes sense for everybody to pay for it.

So electric utilities like Dominion Energy aren't like regular businesses.

They are regulated monopolies.

That's right.

Dominion Energy sells electricity, maintains the grid, builds power lines when they're needed, and regulators let them charge consumers just enough to cover those costs and collect some profit on top.