‘Great Scott!’: 50 gigawatts of power generation by 2050, Morrisey says it’s the goal for West Virginia
August 29, 2025
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, WV – On Thursday, Governor Patrick Morrisey told attendees of the annual West Virginia Chamber’s Business Summit, being held this week at The Greenbrier Resort, that it’s time to leverage the state’s energy resources.
“Right now, West Virginia has 16 gigawatts of baseload generating capacity,” Morrisey said. “Think about that. But a number are projected to shrink with some of the power plant retirements. For a state with over one-third of the coal and gas reserves, I don’t think that makes much sense. So, it’s important for part of our economic development to have a strategic plan to change that.”
The plan, according to Morrisey, is to “supercharge” the state’s power production by increasing the state’s current baseload generation capacity from 16 gigawatts to 50 gigawatts by 2050.
Although the Governor didn’t explain the plan in its entirety on Thursday, he did provide some details, and said more information will be made available in the coming weeks.
“It’s pushing to increase reliability by prioritizing stable sources of fuel, primarily coal, natural gas and nuclear,” Morrisey said of the plan. “By maintaining and building out our grid our ‘50 by 50’ initiative – that’s gonna make West Virginia, by far, the leading per capita exporter of energy in the nation.”
Morrisey continued that part of the plan includes the development and expansion of economical uses for coal that goes beyond power production, though no details on this were provided.
Additionally, Morrisey said that the plan will focus on investing in advanced power generation, including nuclear power plants, as well as the need for sufficient transmission lines and natural gas pipelines.
One day prior to Morrisey’s appearance, Aaron Walker, president and COO of Appalachian Power; Todd Johnston, deputy chief of staff for Gov. Morrisey and director of the state’s Energy, Infrastructure and Competitiveness Council; and Frank Macchiarola, chief advocacy officer for American Clean Power, gave a panel discussion on an “All of The Above Energy Approach.”
Macchiarola began the discussion by explaining that West Virginia is the nation’s second largest coal producer and the fifth largest natural gas producer.
When it comes to renewable energy sources, Macchiarola said that the state is growing – with seven percent of its energy coming from clean energy. However, this is an area the state could expand on.
“That is an opportunity for West Virginia, because it is a net exporter of energy,” Macchiarola said, adding that with the growth of artificial intelligence, the need for extra data centers, and the increase in manufacturing occurring nationwide, extra energy from all sources is going to be needed.
“That confluence of events has created a picture where in the next 15 years we’re . . . our power demand is going to increase by nearly 50%,” Macchiarola stated.
Aaron Walker added that data centers are “proliferating across the United States,” and will require a huge amount of energy to operate, but West Virginia is setting its wheels in motion to meet those energy needs.
“First, I’d say a thanks, really, to the [state’s] legislature, to the Governor’s administration – they’ve really positioned the state well in terms of inviting businesses to invest here and grow,” Walker said. “The West Virginia Public Service Commission [is] really proactive and forward thinking around how do we contract and bring those data centers online, but most importantly, how do we do it in a way that doesn’t transfer costs to all other existing consumers.”
As for Appalachian Power’s energy reliability, Walker said that data centers will create additional investment, and the greater the amount of energy sold means lower costs for West Virginia’s consumers.
“So, the data centers provide an opportunity to help us control costs [by providing] an opportunity for us to invest in the grid, to improve reliability for everyone. So, we’re just really excited about it.”
As for the “50 by 50” initiative, Walker explained that one megawatt of energy powers 900 homes.
“So, you’re talking about 50,000 megawatts of capacity and that’s just here. We’re seeing that demand across the entire nation,” Walker said. “The AEP CEO often talks about – it took us 100 years at AEP to build the capacity that we have currently –we’re talking about doubling that in six years, five years, right? So this is tremendous, tremendous growth.”
He said it’s important to consider permitting reform, environmental review, site challenges and more from a policy perspective to “make all this work.”
Lastly, Johnston said that energy is essential to Gov. Morrisey’s economic development strategy and the energy demand facing the nation is “unreal,” with an estimated 106 gigawatts of capacity in upcoming years to meet demand. But, West Virginia is working to fill half of that demand.
“It strikes me that [West Virginia] is an energy state, but it’s never had a comprehensive energy development policy,” Johnston said. “We’ve never had anything in place that looks specifically at the resources that we have in the ground and on the ground, and how we develop those, push those out, so they benefit the citizens of West Virginia and the country at large.”
Johnston added that West Virginia is one of the fastest states in turning permits around, but when issues arise in Washington that becomes a “problem.”
“Notwithstanding the permitting debate, I think we’re facing one of the best policy atmospheres for energy than we’ve seen in the past 16 or more years,” Johnston said, adding that a continuation of these policies is needed for regulatory certainty.
“[West Virginia] is 30th in electricity production, and that’s way behind where we should be given the amount of energy in BTUs that we’re sitting on. So, again, we’re looking at this as a major opportunity to increase our production rates and put the transmission lines and other infrastructure in place that’s necessary, but, really, for West Virginia to become the battery that fuels the growth of this nation,” Johnston said.
Story by Autumn Shelton, RealWV