Great Bend IGCC

AEP Ohio, a unite of American Electric Power (AEP) filed an air permit application with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in October 2006 for a proposed 629 megawatt (MW) Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant in Meigs County, Ohio. The Great Bend power plant is one of two IGCC power plants proposed by AEP in the Ohio/West Virginia region (the other is Mountaineer, in Mason County, West Virginia), and the two plants will be located within thirty miles of each other. The Great Bend plant will be operated by Columbus Southern Power and the Ohio Power Company.

In April 2006, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approved AEP’s request to charge its customers for $23 million in pre-construction costs. In Aug. 2006, this decision was challenged in the Ohio Supreme Court by the Ohio Consumers' Counsel and Industrial Energy Users-Ohio; this lawsuit could delay the projected in-service date of the plant by up to seven years. Oral arguments in the case were heard on Oct. 9, 2007. In April 2007, the Ohio Siting Board approved the construction of the plant.

In February 2009, AEP announced that construction of the plant would be placed on temporary hold due to economic conditions. An AEP executive indicated that although the corporation will not "proceed on construction in the near future", they are "still very interested in the project".

Project Details
Sponsor: American Electric Power Ohio Location: Meigs County, OH Capacity: 629 MW Type: IGCC Projected in service: Unknown Status: On Hold

Financing

 * Citigroup
 * JP Morgan Chase
 * Goldman Sachs
 * Lehman Brothers

Citizen Groups

 * Meigs Citizens Action Now, Elisa Young, elisayoung1[at] yahoo.com

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Mountaineer
 * Ohio and coal
 * United States and coal
 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * US proposed coal plants (both active and cancelled)
 * Coal plants cancelled in 2007
 * Coal plants cancelled in 2008
 * State-by-state guide to information on coal in the United States (or click on the map)