LS Power Plans to Upgrade 2 Peaker Gas Plants in PA, OH to Baseload
We feel like it’s “peaker” day here at MDN. We have three stories that revolve around peaker gas-fired power plants. What is a peaker? It’s a gas-fired power plant that pops on and gets used only during the heaviest electric usage times, like really hot days in the summer and really cold days during the winter. “Baseload,” on the other hand, are gas plants that run constantly. LS Power, a huge power generation company that owns and operates some 50,000 megawatts (MW) of power generation, including utility-scale solar, wind, hydro, battery energy storage, and natural gas-fired facilities, announced on Friday a plan to add more than 700 MW of new electric generating capacity across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia. The plan includes promoting (upgrading) two peakers, one in PA and one in OH, to become full-time baseload plants. More yummy Marcellus and Utica gas will be required to feed these plants. Read More “LS Power Plans to Upgrade 2 Peaker Gas Plants in PA, OH to Baseload”




In November 2023, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agreed with a petition from Dominion Energy subsidiary Virginia Electric and Power Company that requested a planned LNG production, storage, and regasification facility in Greensville County, VA, should be exempt from FERC jurisdiction under section 7 of the Natural Gas Act (see
This is one of those “man bites dog” stories. It wouldn’t be news if a Virginia House of Delegates member who is Republican proposed allocating $15 million of taxpayer money to provide “road extension, grading, and natural gas pipeline extension” for a natural gas power plant and potential data center in Pulaski County, in rural Southwest Virginia. But it definitely IS news when a Democrat proposes it!
It’s always a red-letter day here at MDN HQ when we happen across a new pipeline project in the Marcellus/Utica region. Today is one of those days! Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE), filed a new project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in December to beef up three existing compressor stations in Centre County, Clinton County, and Franklin County in Pennsylvania, and one existing compressor station in Loudoun County, Virginia, with the aim of flowing more Marcellus molecules to the Washington, D.C. area.
Dominion Energy plans to build small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see
Diversified Energy, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (also assets in other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. Earlier today, the company announced another deal to buy more assets in the Appalachian region.
In November, MDN told you that Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation had settled a class action lawsuit originally brought by several West Virginia landowners (see
One month ago, we brought you the news that Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation had settled a class action lawsuit originally brought by several West Virginia landowners (see
In 2021, as he was running for Governor in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin pledged that if he won, he would remove the state from the onerous carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired power plants called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Youngkin kept his promise, although it took longer than he had hoped. Unfortunately, the left-leaning (very partisan) Association of Energy Conservation Professionals sued. The judge in the case just ruled the way Youngkin removed the state from RGGI was unlawful and that the state must (for now) remain in the high-tax, onerous organization.