CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Mon Power President Chris Beam told the state Public Service Commission Thursday his utility needs to get a new power plant approved and online as soon as possible for those developing data centers.
“We need to start building today to meet a 2031 in-service date,” Beam testified before the PSC. “You have to start now or you won’t make ’31,”
Mon Power is asking the PSC to approve a $2.4 billion natural gas-powered power plant that would be built just north of Morgantown. The utility is asking the PSC to approve a $1.18 a month surcharge on all of its customers to provide the early financing the plant would require.
Beam said Mon Power has been in discussions with three data center developers. The data centers would be the users of the electricity produced by the plant. He said those who run the data centers would eventually pay for the plant.
“As soon as we sign a contract with one of the vendors, and there’s more than one, as soon as we sign the contract we will submit the contract to the Public Service Commission and all that contract will do is reduce the burden that’s on the existing customer base,” Beam said.
He added Mon Power has enough vendors (data centers) in cue that would remove all of the cost of the new plant from existing customers.
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Beam explained to the PSC how it would work.
“If the customer today, me or you, pay this surcharge and we pay it for a month, six months or a year, the data center signs up, they will make a payment back to credit the customer for all of the surcharge they have paid and cover the cost going forward 100 percent,” Beam said.
United Mine Workers Union President Brian Sanson sees it differently.
He was the first witness on the stand in Thursday’s evidentiary hearing. Sanson fears Mon Power will close its coal-fired power plants at Fort Martin near Morgantown and the Harrison Power Station near Lumberport quicker if a natural gas plant is approved.
“When you’re going to put a natural gas plant right beside a coal plant that’s just a natural ending to what’s going to happen,” Sanson said.
Sanson said that would be devastating for the Harrison County Mine that directly feeds the Harrison Power Station. He said the union recently did a study that showed 50 years of coal reserves in the area.
“If you would have asked me five years ago I’d say that Harrison County (Mine) would be the last coal mine in the state of West Virginia to operate. I do not have that opinion today,” Sanson testified.
He took his concerns one step further.
“I believe it sends a clear signal to the rest of the industry that thermal coal in West Virginia is dead, that the industry is gone,” Sanson said.
The PSC is scheduled to take a second day of testimony Friday. It’s scheduled to make its decision by next March.