April 2, 2025
The following statement can be attributed to Jeff Nobers, executive director of Pittsburgh Works Together:
The Homer City announcement shows that Pennsylvania can leverage its tremendous assets, including natural gas and existing infrastructure, to take advantage of fast-moving economic development opportunities like AI data centers. Homer City is not the only retired power plant site we have in Pennsylvania, and we need to demonstrate that we can move at the speed of business with permitting, zoning, and other approvals to develop these kinds of natural gas generation projects around the state.
The Homer City project will help address, in part, the ongoing PJM grid crisis of growing demand and shrinking supply by powering on-site data centers that would otherwise need power from the general grid. But another part of that crisis is the retirement of 40GW of power plants by 2030, primarily due to government policies that will make them impractical to operate. We also need to focus on solving that problem to maintain a reliable electric grid to ensure the safety, economic security, and health and comfort for all Pennsylvanians.
Pittsburgh Works Together is a business-organized labor-workforce-economic development alliance working to grow jobs and expand the industries that are the foundation of our economy, including energy, manufacturing, and construction, to provide opportunity for all residents.
Ken Zapinski
Director of Research & Public Policy
ken@pghworks.com
412-352-4364
