Homer City Generation L.P. reached a major construction milestone this week, completing a massive, high-speed demolition at its former coal-burning power plant in Indiana County.
To clear the way for massive artificial intelligence data centers, workers dismantled heavy industrial structures and excavated roughly 3 million cubic yards of earth ahead of schedule, the company said.
That’s almost enough soil to fill the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The power advantage
The rapid site clearance prepares the 3,200-acre property in Center Township for a new, 4,500-megawatt natural-gas-fired electrical power plant.
Industry experts say the project could give its developers a distinct advantage over competitors by offering tech clients a dedicated electricity source they own.
“Having a dedicated natural- gas-fired power plant could potentially provide an advantage for a hyperscale data center development, but the main advantage may not necessarily be lower power cost,” said Wangda Zuo, an architectural engineering professor at Penn State and member of the university’s Research and Extension Network for Data Centers in PA.
“For large AI and cloud data centers, securing enough power at the right location and within the required timeline has become one of the biggest constraints,” Zuo said. “If a developer can provide large-scale and reliable power more quickly than what may be available through the grid alone, that could be very attractive to data center clients.”
The amount of power the hyperscale data centers would need to operate all that computer equipment is typically greater than 250 megawatts, said Carson Kearl, an energy transition analyst for Denver-based Enverus, a research company that analyzes properties, transmission lines and substations as potential data center sites.
Grid strains and costs
Hyperscale data centers require enormous sites to house all associated equipment, including at least 5,000 computer servers and miles of connection lines that can spread across millions of square feet, according to IBM.
The sheer size of these facilities has drawn pushback from opponents concerned large computer servers will drain power from the regional transmission grid and drive up electric bills for local residents.
Homer City Generation has countered that the new plant’s 4,500-megawatt capacity will generate enough electricity to comfortably supply both the data centers and thousands of homes on the grid.
However, Zuo noted owning a power plant does not guarantee cheap electricity for these warehouse-sized facilities. Owners must still absorb the volatile costs of natural gas, capital investments, plant operations, financing, permitting and strict emissions requirements.
A statewide tech rush
Homer City Generation is not alone in its push to link Pennsylvania data centers directly to dedicated power sources. While the company has not specified how many facilities make up its planned “multiple hyperscale data centers,” major competitors are moving quickly on similar projects across the state:
• In Upper Burrell, Florida-based TECFusions is building a data center for which the majority of power is expected to come from generators running on natural gas from wells already on site. In the next decade, the company says, the facility could use up to 3 gigawatts of electricity.
• Amazon Web Services acquired a data center connected to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear power plant in southern Luzerne County in 2024. Amazon announced it will spend $20 billion on data center projects there and at the former U.S. Steel Corp. plant in Fairless Hills near Philadelphia.
• Microsoft Corp. announced plans to purchase all of the power from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, which is scheduled to be restarted after being shut down for several years.
• Beaver County is preparing for a similar shift, as the former Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport is slated for demolition to make way for a natural gas-fired plant dedicated to future data centers.
Despite the flurry of announcements, Zuo cautioned long-term demand does not guarantee every project will cross the finish line.
“Many of the proposed projects are still at an early stage — planning or permitting — with no construction yet,” Zuo said, noting developers must successfully secure vast cooling capacities, water resources, fiber connectivity and committed customers.
Just how many data center projects are truly in the pipeline depends on the map. Clearview, a market intelligence company tracking the industry, counts 52 data centers in Pennsylvania, listing 11 in operation and 37 in the planning phases.
Meanwhile, DataCenterMaps USA utilizes publicly available information to place the state’s count at 26 operating data centers with six more under construction.
Kearl said it’s highly probable the number of developers wanting to build those sites will eventually outstrip actual market demand. He noted developers typically do not build the shell of a warehouse and market it under a “build it and they will come” philosophy.
“In general, they’re not building the infrastructure before getting a commitment from a client,” Kearl said.
Economic momentum builds
For the Homer City project, the local economic momentum is already tangible.
The nine-month demolition successfully recycled more than 112,000 gross tons of scrap material, including 32,000 tons in March alone destined for the steel industry supply chain, according to Homer City Generation.
A portion of the scrap steel went to Kovalchick Corp.’s scrap yard in Homer City, while some went to the TMS-IMS steel recycling operation in West Mifflin, which has equipment to grind the scrap steel, according to Nathan Kovalchick, chief operating officer for Kovalchick Corp.
Much of the scrap steel went to mills, such as U.S. Steel Corp.’s Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock; facilities in Lawrenceville, New Castle, Koppel and Mingo Junction, W. Va.; as well as Ohio mills in Youngstown and Toledo.
“It was such a big job, it really went everywhere,” Kovalchick said. Recycled copper wiring went to a processing plant in Leetsdale.
Construction began in April on the site’s first building, which will house the high-voltage electrical equipment connecting the plant to the regional PJM transmission grid.
The site’s active workforce has scaled up to nearly 1,300 skilled tradespeople, including electricians, carpenters and boilermakers.
“Completion of site-readiness efforts ahead of schedule means more workers on site sooner, more local businesses engaged and a more immediate economic impact across the region,” said Corey Hessen, CEO of Homer City Redevelopment.
When plans were first announced in April 2025, developers projected the natural gas-fueled plant would be finished next year. The project cleared a major regulatory hurdle in November by securing an approved air quality plan from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Company officials stated last month that the DEP has now issued 14 of the 18 permits deemed material to the project, keeping construction on schedule.