FirstEnergy has taken a 92-acre first step toward developing a massive natural gas and compressed-air power plant near Akron.
But this certainly isn't your mother's power plant. The recently purchased site in Norton would employ technology that compresses air through a turbine when demand is low at night, and release it during the day when demand is at its highest. And it could prove to be capable of producing as much electricity as three nuclear reactors.
FirstEnergy also bought the rights to a 600-acre abandoned underground limestone mine. FirstEnergy spokeswoman Ellen Raines says the high-tech system could be combined with renewable energy technologies.
"The wind blows when the wind blows and the sun shines when the sun shines," Raines says. "If you can combine those intermittent energies with storage, the storage acts like a large battery."
There are only other two such facilities in the world � one in Alabama and the other in Germany. But Raines says with the potential to produce as much as 2,700 megawatts, the mine in Norton would be much larger. To put that in perspective, one megawatt serves approximately 600 homes.
Raines says there is no timetable set when the plant would become operational. Nor is there a firm figure of jobs the mine would create.
"This has enormous potential down the road," she says. "People have looked at this Norton mine for decades to see how it could be used. We're just very happy to have purchased these rights to take advantage of this when the time is right."
Source: Ellen Raines, FirstEnergy
Writer: Colin McEwen