Record · Utility siting
AEP Ohio's Rocky Ford 138 kV Station + the Ebersole-Fostoria Central #2 cut-in and Rocky Ford-Border Basin tie line — Cass Township, Hancock County, Ohio
rocky-ford-138kv-2024
meta
- subject AEP Ohio's Rocky Ford 138 kV Station + the Ebersole-Fostoria Central #2 cut-in and Rocky Ford-Border Basin tie line — Cass Township, Hancock County, Ohio
- kind grid-siting-project
- captured_for issue 1464 (epic 1265, readiness(findlay) — grid posture)
- extracted_at 2026-07-31
- method Direct read of the two OPSB filings' own PDF text layers plus AEP's public notice for the same pair. Both case numbers are printed on the filings themselves; nothing here is taken from a docket search or from press.
- sources
- primary
- file data/documents/grid/findlay/Rocky Ford 138 kV Station Project Letter of Notification.pdf
- file data/documents/grid/findlay/Ebersole-Fostoria Center 2 138 kV Cut-In and Rocky Ford-Border Basin 138 kV Tie Line Project Construction Notice.pdf
- file data/documents/grid/findlay/Rocky Ford 138 kV Station Project Public Notice.pdf
- index
- url https://www.aeptransmission.com/ohio/filings.php
- primary
opsb_cases
- tag [verified]
- statement The project is TWO OPSB cases, filed the same day for the same point of interconnection, because Ohio's application-requirement matrix splits them. Both numbers are printed on the filings' own cover pages and repeated in AEP's public notice.
- cases
- case_no 24-0707-EL-BLN
- instrument Letter of Notification (O.A.C. 4906-6-05)
- applicant AEP Ohio Transmission Company, Inc. ("AEP Ohio Transco")
- filed 2024-09-10
- covers Construction of the Rocky Ford 138 kV Station (~6.25 acres). Qualifies as an LON under item (3) of Appendix A to O.A.C. 4906-1-01 — "Constructing a new electric power transmission substation."
- source Letter of Notification cover page + B(1), p. 1
- case_no 24-0706-EL-BNR
- instrument Construction Notice (O.A.C. 4906-6-05)
- applicant Ohio Power Company
- filed 2024-09-10
- covers The Ebersole-Fostoria Central #2 138 kV cut-in and the Rocky Ford-Border Basin 138 kV tie line. Qualifies as a CN under item (1)(a) of the same appendix (new construction/extension of transmission circuits).
- source Construction Notice cover page + B(1), p. 1
- note Two different applicants — the transmission-only affiliate files the station, the operating company files the lines. Do not collapse them into one filer.
project
- tag [verified]
- location
- township Cass Township
- county Hancock County, Ohio
- landmark "near the intersection of Township Road 238 and County Road 216" (public notice); topographic quadrangles Arcadia, OH and Bloomdale, OH
- parcel 130001029770
- source LON B(3) p. 2 + B(10)(a) p. 4; CN B(8) p. 4; public notice p. 1
- station
- name Rocky Ford Station
- voltage_kv 138
- footprint_acres 6.25
- equipment
- 16' x 27' drop-in control module
- (3) 138 kV circuit breakers, 3000A
- (3) takeoff structures (2 phase-over-phase, 1 H-frame)
- source LON B(9)(a) p. 4
- lines
- cut_in Loop the existing Fostoria-East Lima 138 kV transmission line (specifically the Ebersole-Fostoria Central #2 138 kV circuit) through Rocky Ford Station by extending two single-circuit 138 kV lines of less than 0.1 mile each.
- tie One span of 138 kV line, approximately 0.04 mile, from Rocky Ford Station to a Point of Interconnection with the IPP's own 138 kV transmission line.
- conductor 795 KCM 26/7 ACSR Drake; 100 ft ROW; galvanized steel poles on drilled-pier foundations
- public_notice_summary "less than 0.2 miles of 138-kilovolt (kV) transmission line connecting Rocky Ford Station to a customer facility and an existing 138-kV transmission line"
- source CN B(1) p. 1, B(2) p. 2, B(9)(a) p. 4; public notice p. 1
- schedule
- construction_start 2025-01
- anticipated_in_service 2025-12
- source LON B(6) p. 3; CN B(6) p. 3
- status_as_captured
- tag [open]
- statement Whether the station and lines actually energized on the December 2025 schedule is not established by any captured source. AEP's filings state a PLAN; no in-service confirmation, PJM notice, or OPSB compliance filing was captured. Do not write "in service" without one.
cost
- tag [verified]
- station_usd 8700000
- lines_usd 2214000
- estimate_class Class 4
- cost_recovery Both filings say the same thing in the same words: "The costs for this Project will be recovered through total reimbursement by the IPP." Neither project is a ratepayer-funded network upgrade — the generator pays.
- source LON B(9)(c) p. 4; CN B(9)(c) p. 5
- correction_to_issue_body
- tag [verified]
- statement Issue 1464 carried "~$2.2M" as the cost of "Rocky Ford 138 kV Station + Rocky Ford-Border Basin tie." The $2,214,000 is the LINE project (24-0706-EL-BNR) alone; the station (24-0707-EL-BLN) is a separate $8,700,000. Combined, the pair is ~$10.9M, all IPP-reimbursed.
purpose
- tag [verified]
- statement Both filings state the identical need: "The Border Basin I IPP plans to build a 120 MW Maximum Facility Output (81 MW Capacity) solar generating facility near Arcadia, Ohio. As part of the AE1-146 IPP Interconnection Service Agreement, the Company will be required to connect the proposed facilities to the electric grid." Failure to proceed would jeopardize "the customer's required in-service date per the FERC approved Interconnection Service Agreement."
- interconnecting_customer Border Basin I, LLC — an Independent Power Producer
- generating_facility_opsb_case 21-0277-EL-BGN
- pjm_queue_position AE1-146
- pjm_network_upgrade n8130
- in_aep_long_term_forecast 2024 Long Term Forecast Report, pp. 109-110 (reproduced at LON Appendix B)
- source LON B(1)-B(2) pp. 1-2; CN B(1)-B(2) pp. 1-2
- what_this_is_not
- tag [verified]
- statement AE1-146 is a GENERATOR's queue position — Border Basin I's solar plant — and Rocky Ford is the substation built to receive it. It is NOT a large-load interconnection, NOT a data-center service point, and NOT the One Power "Findlay Megawatt Hub" +300 MW standalone interconnection this epic is looking for. The two sit in different townships (Cass, near Arcadia, versus the Hub's Allen Township) and answer to different processes: a FERC-jurisdictional generator interconnection agreement versus a retail electric service agreement under AEP Ohio's Schedule DCT. The "customer facility" in AEP's public notice is Border Basin I's own station. Anyone reading the county's grid record must not let the presence of a fresh 138 kV substation stand in for the load instrument that is still missing — see megawatt-hub-interconnection.gap.yaml.
review
- tag [verified]
- agricultural_district Both project areas sit on a parcel enrolled in Ohio's Agricultural District Land program, verified with the Hancock County Auditor's Office on 2024-08-20; the parcel "will not be eligible and will be withdrawn from the program by the Company." Station ~6.25 acres, lines ~1.5 acres.
- land_use Hancock County Auditor land use "Other Agricultural Use with Outbuildings Qualified for Current Use Value"; field observation found the area entirely agricultural field. No tree clearing anticipated.
- cultural_resources Phase I archaeological and history/architectural surveys conducted January 2024. One new archaeological site identified, not recommended NRHP-eligible; six resources fifty years or older in the APE, none recommended eligible. SHPO correspondence received 2024-02-12 agreeing the Project will have no effect on historic properties and that no further coordination is necessary.
- proximity No occupied residence or institution within 100 feet (so the EMF section is stated inapplicable); no cemetery, church, school or community facility within 1,000 feet.
- source LON B(10)(a)-(c) pp. 4-5; CN B(10)(a)-(c) pp. 5-6
central_findlay_project
- tag [verified]
- statement Issue 1464 asked for the "Central Findlay Improvement Project" OPSB LON case number. There is no OPSB case to find, and the reason is jurisdictional, not a search failure. AEP Ohio's own description of the work is 69 kV — "Rebuilding four miles of 69-kilovolt (kV) transmission line, installing two miles of overhead 69-kV transmission line and installing one mile of underground 69-kV transmission line" — and Ohio's siting jurisdiction begins at 100 kV. R.C. 4906.01(B)(2) defines a "major utility facility" to include an "electric transmission line and associated facilities of a design capacity of one hundred kilovolts or more," and the O.A.C. 4906-1-01 Appendix A application matrix that produced the two Rocky Ford filings applies to that same class. A 69 kV rebuild is below the threshold, so it generates neither an LON nor a CN. AEP's Ohio regulatory-filings index carries no Central Findlay entry, consistent with that.
- scope_correction The issue body described it as "~4 mi rebuild, ~1 mi underground." AEP's own text is three components — 4 mi rebuilt + 2 mi new overhead + 1 mi new underground, all at 69 kV, not 138 kV.
- stated_purpose "These improvements support the area's electrical needs and strengthen the local power grid by replacing aging equipment." No customer, load, or data-center connection is stated.
- source
- url https://www.aepohiowire.com/transmission-northwest/
- url https://www.aeptransmission.com/ohio/filings.php
- residual_open
- tag [open]
- statement The project factsheet URL the issue carried is 404 and AEP's page gives no schedule, cost, or route. A 69 kV rebuild still needs local road/ROW permissions and would appear in AEP Ohio's distribution capital filings at PUCO, so the record is thin rather than closed. Lead CENTRAL-FINDLAY-69KV.
corridor_linkage
- solar_export_load_import
- tag [inference]
- statement Border Basin I is one of the two utility-scale solar projects Hancock County's 2022 S.B. 52 restricted-area designation grandfathered (the other is South Branch). Rocky Ford is the transmission instrument that builds one of those two out. Read against the load side of this county's record — a 150 MW contracted compute load already operating at the One Power hub and an undocumented +300 MW of "available" capacity beyond it — the county is wiring out 81 MW of solar capacity while its large-load question stays unanswered. The two facts are verified; the framing that joins them is reasoning, and the S.B. 52 designation itself belongs to the governance sub-issue, not this record.
- source LON B(2) p. 1 (Border Basin 120 MW MFO / 81 MW capacity); the S.B. 52 restricted-area designation is carried in issue 1464's research refresh and is NOT independently captured here — do not cite this record for it.
- no_new_profile_field
- tag [open]
- statement As with the Lima "Lyka" record (issue 1476), no SiteProfile/SiteFacility schema field is added for a transmission-siting project. `GridProfile` (src/watermark/grid/model.py) is the connector-generated quantitative backdrop — serving utility, EIA-861 utility profile, EIA-930 BA load, and the campus load share — with `extra="forbid"`; a siting docket, a tariff posture, and a behind-the-meter fleet are corpus instruments, not denominators, and inlining them would put hand-curated prose inside a file the next connector run rewrites. They live here instead, and `_FINDLAY.serving_utility_citation` (the one hand-authored input that reaches grid-profile.yaml) points at them.
Where it connects
grid/findlay/rocky-ford-138kv-2024.project.yaml · — · grid