The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project
The controversial Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP) would cut a 150-foot-wide line across 1,200 acres of farmland in Baltimore, Carrol and Frederick Counties. To do so, it will have to encroach on the private property of hundreds of landowners, who worry about what the project would do to their land.
The developer, Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), submitted the MPRP’s application in December of 2024. It said the goal was to strengthen Maryland’s power grid, but opponents argue it’s an extension cable for Northern Virginia data centers. PSEG’s application was ruled incomplete by the Department of Natural Resources’ Power Plant Research Program, which said it lacked reasoning as to why alternative routes were rejected, and data on the power line’s environmental impact.
As that played out, PSEG took more than 100 land owners along the route of the MPRP to court for access to their properties this past April to survey them for the project. It won the case, and now must provide 24-hour notice before entering someone’s land. But it retains access until the Public Service Commission (PSC) rules for or against the MPRP…