West Virginia is Finally Set to Get Its First Natural Gas Power Plant: A Long-Time Coming

     I have been arguing for years that the state of West Virginia should build natural gas power plants. Earlier attempts to do so were met with interference from the powerful coal lobby. I found it rather disturbing that the state made more electricity from wind turbines along mountain ridges than from the abundant natural gas in the state. Coal still makes around 90% or more of the state’s electricity, giving it one of the highest carbon emissions per capita in the U.S. The fact that there is not a single combined-cycle natural gas plant in West Virginia, where over 3 TCF of natural gas is produced annually, is baffling.

     Blackstone Energy Transition Partners announced that it plans to invest $1.2 billion to build a 600MW combined-cycle natural gas power plant at Wolf Summit in Harrison County, West Virginia, within the Marcellus natural gas producing region. A final investment decision (FID) has been reached. The plant will supply Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC), which supplies power to about 1.5 million residents across Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.

“Helping meet the rising demand for electricity from AI and other areas is among our highest conviction investment themes at Blackstone,” said Bilal Khan, Senior Managing Director, and Mark Zhu, Managing Director, at Blackstone. “We are proud that this project is expected to not only create hundreds of local jobs in West Virginia, but also generate more affordable, efficient and reliable power supply.”

     The plant is expected to deploy a GE Vernova 7HA.02 gas turbine for optimized efficiency. Building the plant is a smart move for the company and for the state of West Virginia, which has been missing out on fully optimizing its natural gas resource endowment.

     The state should continue the momentum and replace some of its aging coal plants with combined-cycle natural gas plants, which would also result in cleaner air, less carbon emissions, and lower-cost electricity for residents and businesses. This should have happened 15 years ago, but as they say, 'better late than never.'

 

     

 

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Blackstone Invests $1.2 Billion to Build First Natural Gas Power Plant in West Virginia. Pipeline & Gas Journal. November 13, 2025. Blackstone Invests $1.2 Billion to Build First Natural Gas Power Plant in West Virginia

7HA gas turbine. GE Vernova. 7HA Gas Turbine | GE Vernova