FirstEnergy finds buyer for Pennsylvania power plants
The Ohio-based owner of West Penn Power in Greensburg announced a tentative deal to sell four natural gas-fueled power plants in Pennsylvania, including ones in Allegheny and Fayette counties.
FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron has a nonbinding letter of intent to sell the plants to an unidentified buyer for $885 million. The deal also includes the buyer assuming $335 million in debt, the company stated this week in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The plants in Springdale and Gans, along with plants in Chambersburg and Hunlock, which is south of Wilkes-Barre, have a combined net value of about $1.2 billion, the company said.
FirstEnergy also is selling its ownership interest in the Bath County hydroelectric power plant along the Virginia-West Virginia border. That ownership interest is included in the total value of the sale.
The exclusive deal expires Dec. 31.
The Springdale plant employs 23 people and produces 638 megawatts of electricity. The Gans plant has one employee and produces 88 megawatts of power, the company said.
FirstEnergy announced last month that it intended to sell its natural gas- and hydroelectric-powered generation plants to become a regulated utility.
The company does not want to remain in the power-generation business, and the four gas-fired plants in Pennsylvania were attractive to potential buyers, FirstEnergy CEO Charles Jones said.
Utility Workers Union of America System Local 102 represents about 10 workers at Springdale units 3, 4 and 5.
“We're concerned which way the company is going,” said Benjamin Wilkinson, the local's president.
The union represents 950 FirstEnergy linemen, mobile maintenance workers and employees at power plants and substations, he said. It has a successor clause in its contract, and FirstEnergy has assured the union it will honor its pension agreements, Wilkinson said.
The company's coal-fired power plants along the Monongahela River — Hatfield near Carmichaels and Mitchell near Elrama — have been idled for about three years.
FirstEnergy is one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric companies, serving about 6 million customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York.
Joe Napsha is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-5252 or jnapsha@tribweb.com.
