MORGANTOWN – With the sale of Pleasants Power Station to California-based Omnis Fuel Technologies completed, Mon Power and Potomac Edison informed the Public Service Commission on Thursday that they have stopped their evaluation of a potential Pleasants purchase.
The companies had been in discussions with previous owner Energy Transmission & Environmental Management about the purchase and had put before the PSC an interim solution to keep the plant open that would have involved a customer surcharge of $3 million per month – or $36 million for a year — to keep the mothballed plant ready to reactivate.
“Based on the closing of the transfer of Pleasants to Omnis, the companies have ceased ongoing analysis of Pleasants and consideration of a possible purchase,” their Thursday filing said. “The companies will not be submitting a Letter of Intent [to keep the plant open while contemplating purchase] with ETEM to the commission for its review and approval.”
The companies told the PSC that they have not implemented a surcharge. But the authorized costs incurred to date are about $350,000, and all costs incurred to date have not been booked, so the amount shown will increase as costs are recorded. They will seek cost recovery in an appropriate regulatory filing in the future.
ETEM had purchased the plant from Energy Harbor, which had been operating it until its June 1, and planned to demolish it.
As MetroNews reported this week, Omnis will go back to using coal as its fuel source until Omnis can build a hydrogen facility next door. Omnis will then convert the coal to hydrogen through a process that uses an ultra-high temperature pyrolysis and converts the coal to hydrogen and graphite. The hydrogen portion that comes off will be piped directly into the power plant.
Omnis has renamed the plant Quantum Pleasants. Quantum Pleasants sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday thanking FERC for its speedy action in approving the sale on July 24, and informed FERC that the sale was consummated on Tuesday.
Email: dbeard@dominionpost.com
