By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
The local Mt. Storm facility was one of four projects selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive funding under the DOEs “Restoring Reliability: Coal Recommissioning and Modernization” initiative.
“Affordable, reliable energy is the foundation of human prosperity and economic growth,” said DOE Undersecretary of Energy Kyle Haustveit. “These investments will help unleash America’s coal miners so they can continue delivering the energy our nation needs to keep the lights on and power the future. Rest assured, coal will play a critical role in our nation’s long-term energy security.”
Under the program, the Mt. Storm Project could receive up to $350 million to “expand and reinvigorate America’s coal fleet through targeted upgrades that increase efficiency, extend plant life, and add dependable capacity.” The announcement came in a DOE press release June 4th on the DOE website.
The DOE stated, “the selection of four coal modernization and reliability projects to strengthen coal-based generation, grid reliability, and strategic energy infrastructure. The selected projects will expand and reinvigorate America’s coal fleet through targeted upgrades that increase efficiency, extend plant life, and support reliable baseload power generation.”
Mt. Storm was one of two projects, along with Anchorage, Alaska, that are planning to construct new coalfired power plants with a combined capacity of 2,850 MW of energy. The other two projects announced were a project in Cumberland, Maryland that plans to recommission a 205 – MW coal facility that ceased operations in 2024 and a project in Puerto Rico to retro fit and modernize an existing coal-fired facility.
The overall funding committed by the DOE is $525 million, which includes $175 million towards six previously announced projects to upgrade existing coal facilities. The six previous projects included three West Virginia projects in Letart, Winfield and Maidsville; one project in Brilliant Ohio, a project in Sauratown, North Carolina, a project in Cheshire, Ohio and a project in Ghent, Kentucky.
The Mt. Storm Power Plant is estimated to employ between 400 to 500 people directly, across its major energy facilities and regional vendors. Mt. Storm is a subsidiary of Dominion Energy and employs approximately 24 union IBEW tradespeople, as well as varying management, engineering professionals and local contractors at the power plant, itself. Mt. Storm also includes the MT. Storm Wind Farm (Vestas), which operates the wind turbine operations at the site.