The developer behind a large transmission line that has become a lightning rod across rural Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick counties plans to seek court permission to survey properties after being denied access by landowners along its proposed route for months.

The step, announced Wednesday by Public Services Enterprises Group, comes as the company’s Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project has sparked an uproar in Central and Western Maryland, uniting landowners and environmentalists in opposition. The region’s electric grid operator, though, has said the approximately 70-mile transmission line is a critical upgrade as the region faces ballooning energy demand.

PSEG applied for a project permit from the Public Service Commission in December, but to proceed with this process Maryland regulators require the company to complete environmental surveys. The majority of landowners PSEG has approached have either denied access or not responded, according to a company fact sheet.

As a result, PSEG’s project director, Jason Kalwa, said the company plans to ask a judge next week to grant temporary access to 90 properties. If PSEG is still unable to negotiate access after that, the company will seek court permission for more properties, Kalwa said.

“We’ve been getting denied since November, December in some cases, and we’ve tried our best to try to seek voluntary rights of entry to these properties,” Kalwa in an interview. “But at some point we do need surveys.”

The project director stressed that this court order would grant temporary access — a different step from pursuing eminent domain, the governmental authority to seize property for public use. To complete surveys, PSEG officials would walk landowners’ properties to take stock of vegetation and environmental conditions that could impact their route.

PSEG plans to file for an initial court order on or around April 15.

PSEG has offered landowners one-time payments of $1,000 for permission to survey its proposed route, which company officials said would cross close to 400 properties.

Kalwa called seeking a judicial order for the surveys a “last resort.” The company remains open to negotiations with landowners who receive court notices in the months ahead.

Joanne Frederick, board president of the opposition group Stop MPRP, called it unacceptable and “a sign of aggression” that PSEG, a company worth nearly $40 billion, would “drag a bunch of landowners to court to potentially violate their rights.”

A Baltimore County resident in the transmission line’s proposed route, Frederick said landowners have a constitutional right to decide who comes onto their property, and “this seems to be a potential bending of those rules.”

PSEG’s move comes after a division of the state Department of Natural Resources determined last month that the company’s permit application was incomplete.

In a letter to PSC regulators, the DNR’s Power Plant Research Program said the application lacked required information on alternative routes and important assessments of environmental impacts. Among them, PSEG’s application needs evaluations of wetlands, forests, sensitive species, areas of historical concern and geotechnical impacts along its full route — all work that requires surveys in the field.

A $424 million project, the Piedmont Reliability line has faced criticism in part because it would shuttle electricity from Pennsylvania to the doorstep of Northern Virginia, where energy-hoarding data centers are putting new strains on the regional grid.

The line is part of a $5 billion portfolio of projects planned by the region’s grid operator, PJM Interconnection, intended to fortify the electricity delivery system as demand grows due to data centers and increasing electrification. PJM selected PSEG to build the transmission line in a competitive bidding process.

At the same time, Maryland has seen a steep drop-off in the amount of power it generates within its borders, in part due to retirements of polluting fuel sources like coal-fired power plants. Without new infrastructure like the Piedmont Reliability Project to bolster the grid, PJM has argued, the region could start experiencing rolling brownouts and blackouts as soon as 2027.

PSEG aims to begin construction in January or February of next year in order to have the transmission line in service by June 2027.

Surveying must begin “as soon as possible,” Kalwa said, with some work facing midsummer deadlines.