State regulators deny Loudoun's bid to pause Golden to Mars line

Loudoun County · July 21, 2026

Virginia's State Corporation Commission has rejected Loudoun County's motion to suspend the final order approving Dominion Energy's Golden to Mars transmission line, and opponents are taking the case to the Virginia Supreme Court, FOX5 DC reported on July 20, 2026.

The approved project includes new 500-kilovolt and 230-kilovolt lines connecting the Golden and Mars substations in eastern Loudoun, along with two 230-kilovolt loops named Lockridge and Sojourner, according to Loudoun County. The commission, the state body that decides where high-voltage lines may be built, issued its final order in case PUR-2025-00056 on June 29, 2026, selecting a path known as Route 3A.

That route runs between an elementary school and a high school in Ashburn and passes homes in the Loudoun Valley Estates neighborhood, where planned towers would stand roughly 185 feet tall, FOX5 reported. Some homeowners could lose portions of their yards through eminent domain, the government power to take private property for a public project in exchange for compensation.

A pause request that included Dominion itself

The motion to suspend came from the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, the Loudoun County School Board, the Loudoun Valley Estates homeowners association and Dominion itself, which joined local officials in asking regulators for time to keep negotiating, according to FOX5. The county board said the discussions aimed to identify "a route that was acceptable to all of the stakeholders." The commission turned the request down.

Dominion says the line is needed to keep pace with Loudoun County's growing demand for electricity and maintains it is not being built for data centers. Vicky Hu, a Loudoun Valley Estates resident of more than 20 years, told FOX5 she believes regulators put corporate interests ahead of homeowners. The company had not responded to the station's request for comment on the ruling as of July 20, 2026.

The same court upheld a related line in February

With regulators declining to halt the project, the dispute moves to the state's highest court. The Virginia Supreme Court weighed a related Dominion project earlier in 2026: on February 19, it affirmed the commission's approval of the Aspen to Golden line, another segment of the utility's planned Loudoun Reliability Loop, allowing that work to proceed, according to the county.