Energy investments benefit West Virginia, industry officials say
August 30, 2024
Industry officials said energy investments can produce significant benefits, including lower fuel and electricity costs, increased grid reliability, better air quality and public health, and more job opportunities.
Aaron Walker, president of Appalachian Power, said data centers seem to be the current talk of the utility world.
“If you’re streaming Netflix or Disney+ … if you’re exploring artificial intelligence with Chat GPT, you’re using a data center,” Walker said during an energy investment in West Virginia discussion Thursday at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce 88th Annual Business Summit at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs.
Walker said data centers need a lot of power.
“On the low end, 200 or 300 megawatts, but most of them are asking us for a gigawatt, three gigawatts,” he said. “That’s more than our entire Appalachian Power West Virginia level. And
they’re coming out everywhere, right? We get calls about these data centers all the time.
That’s an incredible investment opportunity, not just for APCO, but for the state.” Walker said Appalachian Power is putting in a lot of power lines to meet those needs.
“For the first time in several decades, we’re talking about the need to construct new generating facilities to meet that load,” he said.
Demand for natural gas expected in increase
Kevin Ellis, regional senior vice president of Antero Resources, was part of the panel discussion and said the state’s natural gas needs should also increase.
“We want to keep up with that demand,” he said. “We really like to see the announcements and expansions of existing, long time businesses in West Virginia, because we’re looking for that
demand-side equation. The more we can bring here in the state or in the region, the better we all are, especially from the perspective of gas producers.”
Ellis said there are ripple effects for every investment that energy companies make in the state.
“Whether it’s interior, putting $50 million to start a new business — which is a … a new well pad, and we do that 10 times, 11 times, 12 times a year — or whether it’s a peer or midstream company who’s adding more frack [hydraulic fracturing] capacity or for pipeline infrastructure, it has impact ripples across the entire basin,” he said.
Dominion Energy making large investments
Jim Beamer, vice president of state affairs with Dominion Energy, said his company has put about $1.3 billion in investments in West Virginia through vendors, another $955 million into
small businesses, and about $400 million to diverse contractors.
“That’s a lot of what we’ve been doing and we’ll continue to do,” he said.
Beamer said the company is constantly upgrading its facilities.
“We’re constantly doing that,” he said. “If you look at what’s going on from the arteries that serve the East Coast, we all have major transmission lines running through here, and it’s important. We need to upgrade them. We need to invest in them, and when you’re doing that, then you have more jobs coming.”
Capito supports nuclear power
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said everyone hears all the needs of data centers and AI and how much energy it takes to operate them.
“These small modular reactors could really hold a lot of promise,” she said. “They’re cleaner, greener. So the bill that I passed [Senate Bill 1111], hopefully will get a better workforce [in nuclear]. It will also incentivize development in abandoned properties, but it will also tell the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to get on the stick, because if you can’t build one of these
and you don’t know the rules of the road, the government is notoriously slow for giving you the rules of the road. It can be nearly impossible.”
Canadian ambassador agreed with Capito on nuclear energy
After her remarks, Capito moderated a one-on-one discussion with Kirsten Hillman, Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. The discussion focused on West Virginia’s relationship with Canada. Hillman also explained that Canada is proud of their nuclear-power infrastructure.
“We have a lot of nuclear,” Hillman said. “We do large reactors, and we are really moving quickly into the small modular reactor space. We think it’s a very interesting and flexible opportunity in a world where — as we grow in technologies — the demands for energy are going to get greater and greater. We will not be able to drive the requirements of our data that
will be required for AI and modern technologies. We are committed to really advancing the small module reactors.”
Story by Fred Pace, HD Media