Homer City, Pennsylvania, was once known for having the state’s largest coal plant, complete with smokestacks and cooling towers.

That was then. This is now for the borough of under 2,000 residents in Indiana County.

Officials have announced that the former Homer City Generating Station, which was the largest coal-burning power plant in the Commonwealth, will now be home to a natural gas-fired facility with as much as 4.5 GW of power generation, making it the largest such power station in the United States.

For scale, the Tenaska natural gas power plant in Westmoreland County has a capacity of approximately 1 gigawatt.

According to the Associated Press, that amount of electricity is enough to power about three million homes and would be the nation’s third-largest power generation facility after the Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam in Washington and the new Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, according to federal data.

Construction on the Homer City Energy Campus is expected to start this year and cover about 3,200 acres.

“This project will honor Homer City’s place in the proud history of Pennsylvania energy generation, while accelerating the state and local community’s ability to meet the needs of a rapidly shifting energy landscape,” said William Wexler, president and CEO of Homer City Redevelopment LLC, or HCR, a group created to lead redevelopment of the Homer City Generating Station site. The 2-GW Homer City coal plant, located about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, first came online in 1969 and operated until it was decommissioned on July 1, 2023.

According to a HCR release, “data centers are critical to supporting America’s economic and energy growth by powering businesses and enabling continued leadership in innovation. Data center deployment, partly driven by the need to power new AI applications, is a significant factor in the current surge of electricity demand growth throughout the U.S. as the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) estimates that data centers could grow to consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation annually by 2030, up from 4% in 2023.”

“I want to make sure that we win the battle on AI here in America, and we don’t let China beat us on that front, said Gov. Josh Shapiro during a Wednesday event in Bethlehem. “Pennsylvania is going to have something to say about it, because we have energy that can be used to power these data centers, that can be used to power the Gen AI models that we’re going to need in order to win. Now what we have to do as we generate that power and  as power is used by the AI industry, is to ensure that it does not result in increased costs for consumers.

“The way we do that is by generating more power than what we have now, constructing power purchase agreements that work for both the data center and work for local communities, and I’m confident that we can do that by all working together, the energy companies, the data companies, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and our local communities.”

New York-based Knighthead Capital Management LLC is facilitating a $10B investment in the project and Nebraska-based Kiewit Power Constructors Company will construct the facility. GE Vernova, based in Cambridge, Mass., will provide seven high efficiency 7HA.02 hydrogen-enabled, high efficiency, air-cooled and gas-fired turbines.

“Knighthead is thrilled to be involved in the longterm development of the Homer City Energy Campus, which we believe will play a vital role in securing America’s (artificial intelligence) and energy capacity dominance,” partner Andrew Shannahan said in the HCR press release. “We have long recognized the unique value inherent in Homer City’s infrastructure and power generation attributes, and we look forward to working closely with all of the local and national stakeholders that will play essential roles in making this vision a reality.”

The Homer City coal plant was known both for being a major polluter and for its smokestacks, with the Unit 3 stack at 1,217 feet tall considered the tallest in the U.S.

“Alongside our best-in-class partners, we have been working tirelessly to ensure that Homer City’s transformation can happen as quickly and seamlessly as possible,” said Wexler. “Further, we are fully committed to maximizing the unprecedented level of economic opportunity this project represents not just for Indiana County, but for all of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic region of the country.”

Plans to build a natural gas-fired power plant at the site were announced last year, part of Pennsylvania’s move to phase out coal-fired power and use more of the state’s own natural gas. Officials on Wednesday noted the site will use natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, the largest natural gas field in the U.S. More than half of Pennsylvania’s electricity is generated by natural gas-fired power plants, with more than three dozen operating in the state. Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the U.S., behind only Texas.

“We’re sitting on top of one of the largest natural gas deposits in the world, and it makes all the sense to be doing this here and utilizing the space at Homer City to best produce the energy needed to drive these AI centers,” Jim Welty, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, told the Business Times on Wednesday. “We have the production. We’ve always lacked both the ability to get the gas to market and develop those markets. This does both of those.”

Officials said the redevelopment project, and its use of natural gas, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% to 65% per megawatt hour compared to the former coal plant. They said the campus will have enough power generation capacity to serve multiple large data center customers, and also supply power to the local grid for residential and other customers.

The project is expected to create more than 10,000 direct on-site construction-related jobs, along with about 1,000 total direct and indirect permanent positions in technology, operations and energy infrastructure, according to a news release. Officials on Wednesday said the project’s initial capital investment is expected to top $10 billion for power infrastructure and site readiness, with “billions more” expected from development of data centers at the site.

State Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana), whose 41st District includes the Homer City site, said the news “of a new and innovative data center being brought to the site in Indiana County is truly historic and incredibly exciting. This $10 billion capital investment will bring 10,000 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs that will be housed at the Homer City Generating Station property. This will be the largest capital investment ever to be brought to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“Over the last several decades we have no doubt seen production of electricity in our region undergo a significant transition, which has had a substantial impact upon our local communities, labor employees and their families. This development is great news not just for Indiana County, but quite frankly for our entire region and our commonwealth.”

updated to include quotes from Gov. Shapiro

Renderings of the Homer City Energy Campus Available Here: www.homercityredevelopment.com