A natural gas company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, took a first step in preparing the public for its proposed development of two gas-fired power plants in New Albany.
The “Socrates North” plant will be one of two power plants a Williams company subsidiary called Will-Power plans to develop in western Licking County and, if approved, expects to be fully operational by November 2026. A second Will-Power plant is proposed for Morse Road east of Beech Road. And those two facilities would be the second and third gas-fired power plants proposed for western Licking County since January. The first of the three would serve a proposed data center on Mink Street near Rt. 161.
Socrates North would be located on Green Chapel Road west of Clover Valley Road, less than a mile west of where Intel is developing a $28 billion computer-chip manufacturing campus. Will-Power officials said during a public information session in New Albany on Tuesday, March 25, that the power plant would serve to “help bolster Ohio’s high-tech sector.”
An overview of the project was presented during the first of two public information sessions. The second session will be from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 1 at New Albany-Plain Local Schools Annex Building located at 79 N. High Street in New Albany.
The gas-fired power plant would be built on approximately 20 acres and produce 200 megawatts of power from “3 CAT Solar Titan 250 turbines, 9 CAT Solar Titan 130 turbines, 3 Siemens SGT 400 turbines, 15 CAT 3520 Fast Response engines, and 8 CAT C15 Diesel Generators. Delivered on a continuous 24-hour cycle, these generators would be powered by natural gas extracted from the Marcellus and Utica shale layers of rock thousands of feet below ground.
The company says it has one client for the electricity, and when asked which customer it would serve, Maggie McCauley, Will-Power’s Community & Project Outreach Specialist, said only that, “We have one customer, an industrial company.”
Such power plants are becoming the norm for Ohio as the concentration of data centers in the greater Columbus area grows and requires anywhere from 200,000 – 400,000 megawatts, according to industry standards. Licking County currently has 12 of the 108 data centers in central Ohio, according to the company Data Center Map.
The “Socrates North” project is in its early stages, and there’s still much work to be done before it could be approved. As of March, Will-Power must complete the application for review by The Ohio Power Siting Board, which makes decisions about where power plants can be built.
Approval requires Will-Power and its customer to conduct ecological surveys, consultations with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the United States Forest and Wildlife Service, and conduct a number of studies of water, air, sound, infrastructure, and visual impact on the natural landscape. According to Williams, no issues are anticipated with these studies.
If the application is approved, Williams power would begin construction in the third quarter of 2025.
The Ohio Power Siting Board encourages community participation during the application review process, inviting anyone to offer questions or concerns. Those comments can be directed to the OPSB office at 866-270-6772 or email at contactOPSB@puco.ohio.gov.
In addition to the application, Williams energy has an environmental impact team, led by Tara Meek, supervisor of environmental permitting. The team is conducting a sound study this month to determine whether the power plant would disturb the natural environment and community. Plans for a 40-foot sound wall is the first mitigation effort the company said it would implement to stabilize the plant’s sound at 50 hertz — the standard for a generator’s hum.
As for the community, Licking County residents are working through the Clean Air and Water for Licking County group that formed around environmental concerns in the Alexandria area.
The group is working to install 24 air monitors as a first phase of their efforts. The group’s goal is to monitor air quality in western Licking County as data centers and Intel ramp up operations about 7 miles west of Alexandria. The group hopes to have the first phase complete before Intel begins manufacturing in 2030 or 2031 so that the monitors’ data will provide a baseline of western Licking County’s current air quality.
The group has said it will encourage community members to participate as the Clean Air and Water for Licking County group moves into phase 2, in which anyone is welcome to order a monitor if they agree to share its data. Current data from Phase 1 monitors can be found online.
To learn more about the “Socrates North” development, the second public information session will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 1, at New Albany-Plain Local Schools Annex Building, 79 N. High St. The poster session offers information about the plant and layout for the project, as well as the opportunity to discuss with project leaders from the Williams company and the Ohio Power Siting Board.
Anastasia Wood 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.