MORGANTOWN – FirstEnergy sisters Mon Power and Potomac Edison want to build a new gas-fired power plant at their Fort Martin site outside Morgantown.
The companies have filed with the Public Service Commission for prior consent and approval and for a certificate of need and necessity for a 1,200 megawatt combined cycle gas turbine plant along with 70 MW of solar capacity at three other sites.
Pending PSC approval, the companies said construction on the gas-fired plant would begin as early as 2027 and it would go into operation by Dec. 31, 2031.
The companies first mentioned the proposed plant in their 10-year Integrated Resource Plan filed with the PSC last October, then made their official announcement of the plan during an event held on Nov. 6 at Harrison Power Station.
They project the total cost for the gas-fired plant to be $2.476 billion, beginning this year and running through 2033. Costs would be recovered through a surcharge applied to customer bills, which would increase until the plant goes into operation and begins generating power and revenue.
“For a typical residential customer, this investment is expected to increase bills by an average of about 2.3% over the next five years while the plant is being built,” they told the PSC. “Once it begins operating, the impact of the plant on customer bills is expected to level off — and could even result in a decrease — compared to today, as the long-term costs are spread out over many decades. As large customers like data centers come online, they will pay their fair share of the plant costs, reducing residential impacts.”
The companies explained the need for the plant to the PSC. Their 2024 capacity requirement was 3,507 MW while their available capacity resources were only 3,103 MW, leaving a shortfall. And they are projecting a capacity shortfall in 2029.
“Thereafter, the deficit increases fairly rapidly due to customer growth, especially data center growth in the service territory. This deficit is projected to increase each year, reaching a deficit of approximately 1,083 MW by 2045.”
The companies said in November that they were looking at two possible paths to build the plant: either partnering with another company to build the plant and transfer it to FirstEnergy; or to build it themselves.
In their new filing, they told the PSC that the first option didn’t pan out. They found it preferable to build it themselves on their own land, and chose the Fort Martin site, which already has a coal-fired plant and a solar facility.
The three proposed solar sites are at Wylie Ridge in Hancock County, Davis in Tucker County and Valley Point in Preston County. Their total projected cost to build is $182 million.
“Taken as a whole,” the companies said, “the projects will remedy the companies’ capacity and energy deficiencies, support continued delivery of reliable, low-cost electricity for years to come and provide long-term customer and economic benefits. These benefits include meaningful rate stability, strengthened local and statewide economic development opportunities, and increased energy supply resilience for the companies’ service territory.”
The companies reminded the PSC that they haven’t built any new power generation resources since the 1980s. The Fort Martin site has a total 183 acres of usable area, with 50 acres of contiguous buildable area. The plant footprint would be about 35 acres.
A combined cycle unit uses both gas and steam combustion turbines to generate electricity. In the gas combustion turbine, air is pressurized using a compressor, injected with fuel and ignited to generate high-temperature pressurized gas that expands to drive the turbine and generate electricity. The waste heat from the gas turbine is then used to generate steam to drive a steam combustion turbine for additional electricity generation.
The companies told the PSC they plan to issue an RFP – request for proposals – for a gas supplier this month.
They are considering two types of plant technology: one would have a 1,200 MW gross and 1,050 MW net output. The other would have 1,350 MW gross and 1,200 MW net output. The higher-capacity plant would cost an additional $100 million.
