Plans are in the works to build the country's largest natural-gas power plant about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh.
A report in the Wall Street Journal says the site of the former Homer City coal plant in Indiana County is on tap to become an AI data center.
The $10 billion facility will include a massive gas-fired power generator with seven turbines.
The project is estimated to have about 10,000 construction jobs along with 1,000 direct and indirect jobs permanently on the site or serving it.
Rich Fitzgerald - Executive Director of the Southwest PA Commission - says this is an economic game-changer for the region:
“The natural gas gives us a great resource and an economic advantage that other regions don’t have and then you connect it with (Carnegie Mellon University), the largest leading AI university in the country, said Fitzgerald. “So, we can produce the energy needed in the data centers outside of Pittsburgh and Allegheny count.”
The plant is expected to start producing power by 2027.
Homer City Redevelopment said in a statement:
Key attributes and benefits of the project are expected to include:
Delivery of up to 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of power to support AI-driven hyperscale data centers, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60–65% per megawatt hour compared to the former coal plant.
Deployment of numerous previously secured long-lead power components coupled with sufficient generating capacity to serve multiple large data center customers and supply power to thousands of homes on the local grid.
Creation of more than 10,000 direct on-site construction-related jobs[1] along with approximately 1,000 total direct and indirect permanent high-paying positions[2] in technology, operations and energy infrastructure.
An initial capital investment projected to exceed $10 billion for power infrastructure and site readiness, with data center development to inject billions more, making this the largest such investment in Pennsylvania’s history.