Building Tomorrow's Energy Grid Today

As the primary energy provider in the Capital area, we have a responsibility to deliver safe and reliable energy to our customers. The Capital Grid Project is an integrated solution that helps strengthen the Capital area energy grid over the long term, promoting enhanced reliability and resiliency. Through this Project, we are continuing our purposeful work, delivering on our promise to provide safe and reliable energy to our customers, and acting on our commitment to continually driving our communities forward.

The Capital Grid Project is a forward-looking plan that will:

• Upgrade three existing Pepco substations in the District and Maryland
• Construct a new substation to serve the Mount Vernon area in the District, which is experiencing rapid growth and development and will be further upgraded to benefit the community with emerging clean energy technology solutions as part of the Mount Vernon Connected Community Roadmap project
  
• Create a networked system by installing approximately 10 miles of underground transmission cable 

The Project is a solution that resolves many needs in the Capital area and results in a modernized system that can withstand and recover from unforeseen events, such as severe storms or equipment failure. In addition, there are several long-term benefits for our customers in the Capital area including:

Enhancing Reliability

• Upgrading the Takoma, Harvard and Champlain Substations will involve replacing aging equipment with new equipment that has more capacity to meet the long-term energy needs of the areas served by the substations now and in the future
• Updating the substation facilities to accommodate the new equipment

Improving System Redundancy and Resiliency

• Much of the Capital area receives power from point-to-point or "radial" transmission lines that terminate in the area they serve. These lines provided a "backup" supply, or redundancy within the Capital area when they carried electricity to customers from local power generation, but those generation plants have since been retired
• Installing underground transmission cable will create a networked system allowing power to be supplied through a number of paths and build in additional flexibility to minimize the impact should severe weather, equipment failure or an unforeseen event occur  

Support Growth of Renewable Energy

• By increasing substation and transmission capacity, the Capital Grid Project will also increase the grid's capacity to accommodate more customer-generated power, such as rooftop solar

Enable Economic Development

• Supporting residential and business growth in the Capital area
• Expanding procurement opportunities for local, minority, women, veteran and disabled contractors for Project work

Timeline

Pepco has provided information on the details and benefits of the Capital Grid Project to multiple stakeholders, including the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia (PSC) and the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA). We are pleased that the PSC and BZA have approved the Project, and construction will begin in 2020. The proposed timeline is included in our Capital Grid Project fact sheet 

We will continue to coordinate with local partners and governing agencies to minimize the impact on businesses, traffic and parking, or other possible disruptions. 

Interactive Project Map

Click here for an interactive map showing where construction will take place and when we will be visiting your community to talk about the project.

Contact Us

Email: CapitalGrid@Pepco.com

Join the Conversation: Follow @PepcoConnect on Twitter and Facebook. Use the hashtag #CapGrid.