CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The president of the Brooke County Power plant project testified Tuesday before the state Public Service Commission plans for a new power plant in Follansbee would ideally be powered by natural gas drilled from the site where the plant will be built.
Andrew Dorn testified during the first day of a three-day evidentiary hearing for the plant before the PSC in Charleston.
Dorn said they would like to get the gas from the “dry Utica right on top of us in Brooke County.”
Dorn also testified he believed once developed Southwestern Energy’s well pads in the Utica Shale on site could produce an adequate amount of Utica dry gas to power the entire generating facility. However, he also admitted they aren’t there yet, and will need other sources of fuel to get the project off the ground.
“We need to have access to the secure, reliable, and economically competitive gas,” Dorn told the PSC. “You need to balance the plant for volume fluctuations and you need that firm backstop from a very liquid point to make the finance markets comfortable. Hence, we need large volumes of gas on an interstate pipeline.”
Plans to use natural gas as fuel to generate power has already drawn fire from some opponents in Brooke County who fear the Follansbee operation could erode the coal market in the region. Others worry allowing the company to tap into the interstate pipeline could leave them permanently using gas produce out of state.
Buffalo-based Energy Solutions Consortium plans to build the plant on the Cross Creek Wildlife Management Area located near the Pennsylvania state line, through an agreement with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. Project managers have said they have also reached an agreement with the West Virginia Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation to use local laborers to build the plant. Construction will employee about 400. Once operational the plant would provide 30 permanent jobs and 170 permanent support jobs in the region.
Dorn noted there is a stipulation they must have a contracted fuel supply before construction on the project can begin. The plant will not only be designed to burn natural gas, but can also be quickly switch to burn ethane. It’s a flexibility Dorn told the PSC that will be economical and an advantage to not only the plant but gas producers.
“When the markets in the basin get out of balance they need a place to put that ethane because you can’t start putting it into the natural gas pipeline.” he said. “We’re a very nice outlet at times when somebody has a short term ethane imbalance. I doubt the facility will daily use ethane, but I’m confident many days throughout the course of its life it will have opportunities to use ethane.”