Another Data Center Announced for SWPA; Range to Provide NatGas
History is being made. Last week, MDN brought you the exciting news that THE largest gas-fired power plant in the country, along with a MASSIVE data center complex, will be built at a former coal-fired power plant site in Indiana County, PA (see Largest Gas-Fired Power Plant in the U.S. Coming in Western Pa.). The site will be transformed into a more than 3,200-acre natural gas-powered data center campus, complete with a 4.5 gigawatt Marcellus-fired power plant. It was the first announced new gas-fired power plant in PA since the 1,000-megawatt Hickory Run Energy Center built at a former manufacturing site in New Castle (Lawrence County), PA, went online in 2020. And now, a second announced new data center with gas-fired power is coming to western PA. Read More “Another Data Center Announced for SWPA; Range to Provide NatGas”
In February, MDN told you that the Democrat leadership in the Maryland state legislature was pushing a bill that would rechristen gas-fired power as “green” and make it easier to build new gas-fired power plants in the state (see 
Electricity demand in the United States will increase 2% annually and 50% by 2050, according to a new study conducted by PA Consulting and released by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). That is massive! For the past 20 years, the U.S.’s electricity generation and use have remained virtually unchanged. This new study shows a year-by-year increase in electricity demand for the next 25 years. The study indicates unreliable solar and wind are not up to the task of providing the increase. Instead, NEMA advocates for an all-of-the-above approach to energy production, including natural gas, small modular reactors, and geothermal. 
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is the country’s sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility company. In May 2023, TVA announced that it would convert the Kingston Fossil Plant (coal-fired plant) in East Tennessee to a natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 1,500 megawatts of electricity (see 
Last week, MDN brought you the exciting news that THE largest gas-fired power plant in the country, along with a MASSIVE data center complex, will be built at a former coal-fired power plant site in Indiana County, PA (see 
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is America’s largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to limited government, free markets, and federalism. Comprised of nearly one-quarter of the country’s state legislators and stakeholders from across the policy spectrum, ALEC members represent more than 60 million Americans and provide jobs to more than 30 million people in the United States. Even though Pennsylvania is a natural gas haven, Pennsylvania ranks only 32nd in energy affordability according to ALEC’s recently-released Energy Affordability 2025 report (full copy below). ALEC says PA’s existing policies under Gov. Josh Shapiro, meant to wean the state off fossil fuels, have made affordability WORSE. 
Two weeks ago, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) staff issued the agency’s annual State of the Markets report for 2024 (full copy below) to provide the industry and public with key information on market conditions and emerging issues in natural gas and electricity markets as well as significant market trends and fundamentals for the year. According to FERC Chairman Mark Christie, “The combination of rapidly increasing electricity demand, driven by hyperscale customers such as data centers, paired with the alarming rate of base load generation retirements and lack of new dispatchable generation, is not sustainable and must be addressed.” FERC is sounding the alarm that more dispatchable (i.e., natural gas) power generation is urgently needed. 
We’re still coming to grips with understanding how the power generation market works with respect to providing electricity for AI data centers. Data centers can potentially be huge and important new customers for natural gas—especially Marcellus/Utica molecules, as some 25% of all the data centers currently operating in the country are located in northern Virginia, where they use M-U molecules. In February, we brought you a post to help you better understand the various scenarios for how powergen gets provided to these data centers (see 
Last week, Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw (Lycoming County), chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, sounded the alarm for all Pennsylvanians. Yaw said, “We are going to have to suffer some hardships. Meaning, we probably are going to have some blackouts, brownouts.” Why would PA, an electricity exporter, experience blackouts? The plain, simple, and short answer is because of Governor Josh Shapiro’s idiotic energy policies.