A new transmission line that will improve reliability in the Beckley area has been completed and is set to go into service tomorrow. The Appalachian Power line stretches through 7.2 miles of Raleigh County near Daniels.

Construction on the Clifftop-Cherry Creek line began in 2004, as growth in the area reached a point where electric service reliability was compromised, according to Appalachian Power’s Jay Johnson, project manager for the line.

“Normally, we see electrical load growth of about 2 percent a year,” Johnson said. “In this area, we’re seeing a load growth rate of more than 5 percent a year. That’s good news for the economy in the area, but it meant we needed to make this improvement to our infrastructure.”

To shore up service in the area, the company constructed the new transmission line from Clifftop Station to Cherry Creek Station. The line will prevent overloads of critical facilities and provide adequate capacity levels for future growth and development in the area. The project also included installation of a new 138/46kV, 90 MVA transformer at the Cherry Creek Station as well as other station work and associated distribution work to integrate the new line and transformer to the existing transmission system.

Appalachian Power provides electricity to 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee.  It is a unit of American Electric Power, the nation’s largest electricity generator.  AEP owns more than 36,000 megawatts of generating capacity and is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, with more than 5 million customers in 11 states.