What was erstwhile Pennsylvania’s biggest coal-fired powerfulness works is being turned into a $10 cardinal earthy gas-powered information halfway field designed to capitalize connected Big Tech's fast-growing vigor demands
ByMARC LEVY Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- The owners of what was erstwhile Pennsylvania's biggest coal-fired powerfulness works said Wednesday that they volition crook it into a $10 cardinal earthy gas-powered information halfway field designed to capitalize connected the fast-growing vigor demands of Big Tech companies to powerfulness artificial quality and unreality computing applications.
The erstwhile Homer City Generating Station, astir 50 miles (80 kilometers) eastbound of Pittsburgh, volition big 7 gas-fired turbines to powerfulness information centers connected tract with up to 4.5 gigawatts of electricity, according to the owners, an capitalist radical named Homer City Development.
That magnitude of energy is capable to powerfulness astir 3 cardinal homes.
Construction is expected to statesman this twelvemonth and powerfulness could commencement flowing by 2027, the radical said successful a statement. The outgo to hole the tract and physique the information centers could transcend the archetypal $10 cardinal concern by billions more, the radical said.
Much of the captious infrastructure for the task is already successful spot from the shuttered Homer City powerfulness plant, including transmission lines connected to the mid-Atlantic and New York powerfulness grids, substations and h2o access, the radical said.
The developers were awarded a $5 cardinal authorities assistance to widen a state enactment to the property, which sits atop the prolific Marcellus Shale earthy state reservoir.
Last month, the radical demolished the 3 cooling towers and 4 smokestacks inactive lasting from the erstwhile ember plant. It unopen down successful 2023 aft 54 years successful operation.
The owners, Homer City Development, blamed contention with cheaper earthy gas, unseasonably lukewarm winters that demanded little power, the rising outgo of ember and progressively costly biology regulations.
The precocious 2022 debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT — built with assistance from Microsoft's information centers — ignited worldwide request for chatbots and different generative AI products that typically necessitate ample amounts of computing powerfulness to bid and operate.
That has sent Big Tech companies successful hunt of caller powerfulness sources, spurred involvement successful a caller question of atomic reactors, revived involvement successful gathering caller gas-fired plants and stoked concerns among states and national regulators astir energy shortages.
It's besides prompted utilities to hold the retirements of aging powerfulness plants and to bring atomic powerfulness plants retired of retirement, including past year's announcement that the shuttered Three Mile Island atomic powerfulness works volition reopen nether a 20-year statement to provender Microsoft's information centers.
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Follow Marc Levy connected X at: https://x.com/timelywriter.
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