Ohio Uses NJ Wind Tool to Fast-Track Piketon Gas/AI Power Lines
Ohio has asked PJM to dust off a rarely used piece of grid-planning machinery — a tool invented to string wires to offshore wind farms — and use it instead to speed up $4.2 billion in new high-voltage power lines to the 10-gigawatt SoftBank data center and gas plant complex at Piketon. We got our hands on the letter. It’s dated June 15, 2026, from PUCO Federal Energy Advocate Sarah J. Parrot to PJM President and CEO David E. Mills, and it’s been sitting quietly for nearly three months. It surfaced this week because PJM is briefing its Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee (TEAC) on the request today, Sept. 8, to use the “state agreement approach.” Read More “Ohio Uses NJ Wind Tool to Fast-Track Piketon Gas/AI Power Lines”
A pile of poster boards in a YMCA gymnasium is not usually where you find the most important number in a $33 billion project. But on Aug. 27, at the Pike County YMCA in Waverly, Ohio, an SB Energy executive told a Columbus Dispatch reporter something that ought to get every Utica producer’s attention: the turbines are already bought. Not ordered. Not “in negotiations.” Bought — for the first phase of what will be the largest gas-fired power plant in American history. 
It’s official. In June, we told you OpenAI was in “advanced negotiations” to lease the gargantuan 10-gigawatt (GW) data center campus rising on federal land in Piketon (Pike County), Ohio (see 
This seems kind of….odd. We’ve been tracking and reporting on what will be the country’s (and possibly the world’s) largest gas-fired power plant, coming to Portsmouth (Scioto County), Ohio. Last week, President Trump unveiled the first projects under a $550 billion trade deal with Japan, including a $36 billion investment in U.S. energy and minerals (see 
President Donald Trump unveiled the first projects under a $550 billion trade deal with Japan yesterday, including a $36 billion investment in U.S. energy and minerals. In exchange for a 15% reduction in tariffs on imports, Tokyo will fund initiatives in Texas, Ohio, and Georgia to revitalize the industrial base. The centerpiece is a record-breaking $33 billion natural gas power plant in Piketon (Pike County), Ohio, operated by SoftBank’s SB Energy. This 9.2-gigawatt facility—the largest in U.S. history—is designed to create thousands of jobs and support the surging energy needs of data centers and artificial intelligence applications. It will produce enough electricity to power every single home in Ohio! It’s massive.