A public hearing on a proposed 450-megawatt powerplant in western Licking County scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 22, follows a hearing earlier this month for a similar power plant to provide electricity to data centers.
The hearing on Oct. 6 drew more than 50 people, and of those who spoke, most were against the proposal by Will-Power to build a 500-megawatt natural gas-fired electric generating facility and 260 megawatt battery storage system east of Mink Street and just north of Rt. 161.
The Ohio Power Siting Board will hold the hearing on the latest proposed power plant for Licking County, called PowerConneX New Albany 3 Energy Center, at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22, at New Albany High School, 7600 Fodor Road, New Albany. It will also take public comments online under case number 26-361-EL-BGN.
Documents related to the case are available online in the file under that case number.
The plant is proposed for a site north of Rt. 161 on Harrison Road between Mink Street and Clover Valley Road, and construction would result in removal of 65 acres of trees on the 170-acre project site.
Documents in the OPSB file for the latest PowerConneX 3 data center says that it would be approximately 1.3 million square feet of data center space within four data halls, along with an associated electrical substation, energy center, site entrances and drives, stormwater facilities and related infrastructure.
The company has requested authorization “to impact 5.86 acres of isolated wetland on an approximately 170-acre permit area located in the City of New Albany, Licking County, Ohio.
The wetlands would be filled in to allow for the construction of the data center.
“To mitigate for impacts to the isolated wetlands,” the application says, “EdgeConneX is proposing to purchase 14.7 acres of forested credit from the Wetland Resource Center Mitigation Bank.”
The case file includes the PowerConneX application to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for a “permit to install” equipment at the proposed facility, which it says “will include twelve (12) proposed diesel-fired emergency generators with integral fuel storage tanks (i.e., Belly Tanks), 1 proposed diesel-fired emergency fire pump engine, and thirty (30) proposed natural gas fired electric generator engines, and four (4) black start engines.”
“The natural gas-fired engines will be the primary power source for the data center while the emergency generators will supply power to the site in the event of power emergency or outage,” the application says. “The fire-pump engines will pump water to the fire suppression system in the case of a fire.”
The application says the company expects the potential emissions from the plant would be the following in a year:
- 161.3 tons of nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide
- 218.8 tons of carbon monoxide
- 10.2 tons of sulfur dioxide
- 178.1 tons of fine particulate matter
- 178.1 tons of course particulate matter
- 243.9 tons of volatile organic chemicals
- 63.8 tons of hazardous air pollutants
- 23.7 tons of formaldehyde
- 214.2 tons of ammonia
A smaller gas-fired powerplant, a 200 megawatt facility called “Socrates South,” began operation in August in Licking County near the intersection of Beech and Morse roads, according to Matt Schilling, director of public affairs for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
“Seven others (in Ohio) have been approved by the Ohio Power Siting Board, and we have four under review by the board,” Schilling said. “In total, that’s about 5,300 megawatts. In Ohio, as a whole state, peak demand is about 20,000 megawatts.”
That means the new power plants for data centers, if approved and when built, would generate the equivalent of about 20% of what the entire state consumes on a hot summer day, Schilling said. Utility standards estimate that 1 megawatt would power between 500 to 1,000 homes at any given time.
An interactive map of the power plants is available on the Ohio Power Siting Board website. Many of them are classified as “behind-the-meter” generating stations because they serve a single company’s electricity needs and do not provide electricity to the national grid.
Other power plants in the pipeline for Licking County include:
- Socrates North, a 200 megawatt facility under construction east of Beech Road and south of Green Chapel Road.
- PowerConneX 1, a 125 megawatt facility under construction east of the intersection of Harrison and Clover Valley roads.
- STY (Socrates The Younger) Power Generation Facility, a 250 megawatt facility under construction southwest of the intersection of Harrison and Clover Valley roads.
- PowerConneX 2, a 216 megawatt facility under construction on Clover Valley Road west of Mink Street.
- Will-Power’s Neo Power Generation Facility, a 500 megawatt facility proposed for east of Mink Street between Beaver Road and Jug Street – across Mink Street from the PowerConneX 3 site.
Alan Miller writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.