HOMER CITY, Pa. — For years, the Marcellus Shale industry’s massive growth potential has been boxed in by one simple fact: There isn’t enough demand for natural gas in Appalachia or the pipelines to carry it to other parts of the country that need it. Wednesday’s announcement of a 4.5-gigawatt gas-fired power generator and data center campus at the former Homer City coal plant will put that concern in the region’s rear-view mirror.
The massive power plant is a $10 billion initial investment into electricity generation that will make more than enough for the needs of the multiple power-hungry data centers for AI and high-performance computing that are hoped to eventually locate at Homer City, as well as enough excess electricity to power thousands of homes in the PJM Interconnection regional grid.
It’s a major vote of confidence in and signal that Pennsylvania’s decadeslong reservoir of natural gas can and should be used to power the data center and AI revolution that experts have said could require dozens of gigawatts more power in the coming years.
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