By Stephen Smoot
Construction should open soon on the new Wolf Summit Energy LLC natural-gas fired power plant in Harrison County, but it took time, effort, and the overcoming of different obstacles to achieve.
Energy Solutions Consortium first proposed the plant in 2015, with General Electric “a primary investor in the project,” according to a 2024 article on the West Virginia Association of Counties website.
The original plan called for a $616 million cost of construction and a partnership between New York-based Energy Solutions Consortium and Caithness Energy, also based in the Empire State. In recent years, New York State has passed regulations to make natural gas production and use more difficult.
The plant overcame challenges by groups backing use of coal over natural gas, but the West Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals cleared the decks of the challenge from that industry. COVID, however, induced lower levels of demand that caused the group to shelve the project.
The plant would have supplied the 13-state region of Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) system.
When the opportunity came up again, Harrison County Commissioners were measured initially in response. Commissioner David Hinkle stated to the WVAOC that “we went through a lot of work to get industrial road access. We purchased property that we didn’t need to own and had a lot of expenses on our part so that plot of land would work.”
By December of 2024, the Harrison County Commission approved a site option, then in the next month allowed a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) deal. It will come into fruition on Pinnickinnick Hill in Montpelier Addition near Clarksburg
The proposed plant is expected to produce 625 MW.
In related news, First Energy early this year announced that it would retire Mon Power’s Harrison and Fort Martin plants in favor of natural gas-fired facilities before 2040. American Electric Power has also indicated, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting, that it may convert the John Amos and Mountaineer plants to natural gas in full or in part.
Likely in response to the proposed transitions, some in the West Virginia State Legislature have proposed mandatory use of coal plants. The way in which that would be regulated under state law has attracted heated criticism as economically unworkable and opposed to free market economic principles.
These proposals came prior to Governor Patrick Morrisey’s plan to expand state production by 2050, however.
Wolf Summit’s facility will be the first natural gas-fired power plant in West Virginia.
