In so doing, the PSC denied a staff motion to dismiss the application.

The new procedural schedule pushes the evidentiary hearing in the case back from February to October 2010 and the deadline for a commission decision back from June 2010 to February 2011.

American Electric Power and Allegheny Energy filed in May as the two utilities’ joint venture PATH LLC to receive a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the West Virginia parts of a $1.8 million transmission line. The line would run from near the John Amos plant in Putnam County northeast for about 280 miles across West Virginia and Virginia to near Kemptown, Md.

The two-utility, three-state configuration of the line has spawned a family of companies and, in September, one PATH company’s filing was rejected by the Maryland Public Service Commission because the company was not an “electric company” as defined by that commission.

When the project had not re-filed in Maryland by the end of October, the staff of the West Virginia PSC moved to dismiss the application and require a new filing — both in order to ensure that the West Virginia process was not wasted, and to incorporate upcoming electric need forecasts from regional grid manager PJM Interconnection.

The PATH partners responded with a preference for extending the deadline.

After numerous intervenor responses and proposals, the commission has chosen that option.

The new schedule does not change the in-service date of June 2014, according to Allegheny Energy spokesman Allen Staggers.

However, PJM already has pushed back that needed in-service date twice, from 2012 to 2013 and 2013 to 2014, based in part on load forecasts.

Since PJM’s early 2009 forecast, electric demand has dropped and is expected by the federal Energy Information Administration to rebound only slowly.

PJM’s early 2010 forecast may further postpone the need for the PATH.