Aug. 3, 2026
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
PPL Corp., as I posted Sunday, bought 50 acres of farmland with a couple buildings in Upper Macungie Township for $1.75 million in June.
While checking on that, I found an 85-page document about plans for that area, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
Here’s a link to the PDF document:
PPL – Tek Park LON – Filing Letter re LON (Dated 5.1.26)(32402407.1)
The energy company wants to put in new power lines to serve Tek Park, an industrial park/technology campus in Upper Macungie.
Tek Park was acquired in 2025 by TierPoint. It used to be the home of AT&T Bell Labs, then Lucent, then Agere.
In case you haven’t heard of your new neighbor, St. Louis-based TierPoint does this:
“We are security-focused, cloud-forward, and data center-strong, a champion for untangling the hybrid complexity of modern IT, so you can free up resources to innovate, exceed customer expectations, and drive revenue.”
That’s the jargon from the website. To put it briefly, TierPoint says it has “40 world class data centers.”
Data centers need power, and power has to travel over power lines.
This work is thus not really new. From the 85-page PPL letter,
“PPL Electric has provided information about the proposed Project to representatives of Upper Macungie Township and Lehigh County, who have not indicated opposition to the Project.”
So the township has gone over the extension of power lines. If there are questions, I suggest taking them to the Upper Macungie government.
Here’s where the lines will go, according to the lengthy May 1 letter:
“The Project crosses four public roads: Haas Hill Road, Newtown Road, Long Lane, and Tillage Road.” That’s just a tiny part of this missive.
So there you have it, sort of. For those directly affected, I’d read that 85-page Letter of Notification.
And good luck.
Disclosure: I own shares of PPL (NYSE:PPL).
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 