Natural Gas Power Plant Planned For Central West Virginia
March 5, 2015
By CASEY JUNKINS Staff Writer,The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register
MOUNDSVILLE - Developer Andrew Dorn believes there is enough Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas and ethane to fuel multiple electricity generators throughout West Virginia, starting with the $615 million Moundsville Power facility he plans to have running before June 2018.
Just one day after Dorn's son, Matt, announced Energy Solutions Consortium's intention to build two new natural gas power generators near the former Wheeling Corrugating plant in Beech Bottom, the Dorns entered a memorandum of understanding to build another such facility near Clarksburg, W.Va.
Harrison County Administrator William Parker said the agreement the county's commissioners entered with ESC Harrison County Power "is very preliminary at this point."
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American Electric Power produces 580 megawatts of natural gas fired electricity at this plant in Dresden, Ohio. Moundsville Power plans to have a similar facility running by 2017.
Curtis Wilkerson, a spokesman for Moundsville Power, Energy Solutions Consortium and ESC Harrison County Power, said the Dorns are the principals for all three firms, but the potential plants are technically separate businesses.
"If this is a 10,000-mile journey, we are on about step three," Wilkerson said regarding the Beech Bottom and Clarksburg projects. "We have to stress the tentative nature of this."
Still, Andrew Dorn is "really confident" the Moundsville project will become reality, with earthwork set for the 37-acre portion of land along W.Va. 2 and the Ohio River in "October or November."
"We've been looking around for potential sites. It is a long hunt. But, West Virginia is ideally located for these kinds of plants," Dorn said, adding the state's relative proximity to the Eastern Seaboard gives in an advantage for sending power to market.
"There is a ton of leg work for us to do," he added. "If we can find the right locations, we will move forward."
"There is a huge demand for power out there - even without the coal plants coming off-line," Wilkerson said of Environmental Protection Regulations leading to the closure of many of these units, including the American Electric Power Kammer Plant.
Dorn's company recently cleared the final construction hurdle for its $615 million generator by receiving its siting permit from the Public Service Commission of West Virginia, as well as the air quality permit from the Department of Environmental Protection.
Burning about 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per year, the plant is expected to be the largest consumer of natural gas in West Virginia. It will also be one of the first in the U.S. to burn ethane, according to company officials.
"There is currently a glut of ethane in the wet gas area, particularly in Marshall County. There is just so much of it," Dorn said.
West Virginia leaders still hope officials with Brazil-based Odebrecht will build a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker petrochemical plant in Wood County. Dorn said the turbines his plant will use are insured as long as the gas stream they burn does not exceed 25 percent ethane. He does not believe the two ethane-based projects are in competition with one another, however.
"If the Wood County ethane cracker comes, that will not hurt us. We'll still have plenty of other fuel to use," he said. "And the ethane ... there is plenty for all of us."