What was the largest Operational Coal Electric Power Station in Pennsylvania will become a 3,200 -hectare data center and the 4.5 GW natural gas power plants for 2027, its developer and contractor EPC announced on April 2.
The Homer City Energy Campus, which is developed near Pittsburgh by Homer City Redevelopment LLC, a private group of investors and designed and built by Kiewit Corp., is expected to have seven natural gas turbines and become the largest power station in the United States, more than double the capacity of the original coal installation, which began operating in 1969, but was disconnected by 2023 due to 2023. of economic pressures.
“Kiewit is excited to help advance what is ready to become the largest plant of natural gas in the nation,” said Dave Flicinger, executive vice president of Kiewit Power builders. The project will create more than 10,000 Direct Work Related to Construction and on 1,000 direct and indirect positions According to technology, operations and energy infrastructure, the project team said.
Kiewit will work under a project work agreement, told the corporate spokesman Bob Kula. “We have extensive experience of EPC in Pennsylvania and we hope to work with the talent of the Local Union to offer another important project for the state,” he said.
The firm served as EPC for the units of the city of Homer 1 and 2 of combustion gas disulfurization, completed in 2016, said Kula.
Shawn Steffee, president of the South Central Pa building.
Kiewit Engineering Group Inc. He has been responsible for the design of the power plant and has been working in frontal engineering since November, said Kula.
The initial of the project Capital investment exceeds $ 10 billion For the power infrastructure and the preparation of the site, Homer City Redevelopment said, adding that the construction of the data center will add “thousands of millions of millions” not specified, making the project “the” greatest investment in Pennsylvania history. “”
The developers did not spread customer names from the signed data center and did not respond to a consultation on whether Kiewit Corp. It is also a financial departure of the project.
The GE Vernova turbines will be made by hydrogen, with the first installment to start by 2026 and the gas that will be derived from the Marcellus Shale region within the state. The developers received a state grant of $ 5 million to expand a gas line at the plant’s site, according to Associated Press.
Much of the critical project infrastructure is already underway from the inherited coal plant, including the transmission lines connected to the interconnection of PJM and the Nyiso electric grilles, substations and access to the water.
The construction of plants is expected to begin its year, with the electricity production to begin in 2027, the project team said.
More than half of Pennsylvania’s electricity is generated by power plants in natural gas, with more than three dozen operating in Spain. Pennsylvania is the second largest natural gas producer in the United States, behind only Texas, according to the state, that all units left in coal are determined or converted into natural gas burns for 2028, officials have said, despite recent calls by Trump administration to keep them in operation.
The plant was acquired by private capital companies in 2017 after the then owner Homer City Generation LP presented for the protection of Chapter 11. The plant, operated by NRG, had previously been owned by General Electric and Edison International.
The cooling towers and three of the four piles of the old coal fire plant, more than 1,000 feet high, were implied on March 22 with the last one that was demolished this month.
“We have long acknowledged the sole value inherent in Homer City’s infrastructure and energy generation attributes,” said Andrew Shannahan, a member of the Knighthead Investment Firm Capital Management LLC, one of the developers who has maintained participation in the old plant and will continue to lead the project’s funding.
The Energy Regulatory Federal Commission still has to make a decision as to whether the data centers such as those expected in the Homer city site can buy some power directly from the power station instead of the network, said the Wall Street Journal
