FirstEnergy Corp has agreed to sell its stake in a 713MW pumped storage hydro facility in Virginia, US, along with four natural gas generating plants in Pennsylvania, for US$925 million to a subsidiary of LS Power Equity Partners III, LP, of New York.
The power stations included in the sale are owned directly or indirectly by FirstEnergy subsidiaries Allegheny Energy Supply Company, LLC, and Allegheny Generating Company and have a total capacity of 1572MW. The 23 current employees at these power stations will be offered employment with the new owner.
The transaction includes:
- Bath County pumped storage facility.
- Springdale Generating Facility Units 1-5 (638MW natural gas).
- Chambersburg Generating Facility Units 12-13 (88MW natural gas).
- Gans Generating Facility Units 8-9 (88MW natural gas)..
- Hunlock Creek (45MW natural gas).
In November 2016, FirstEnergy announced it was moving away from competitive generation markets and was exploring a variety of options, including seeking to move some of its competitive assets to more regulated or regulated-like constructs, or selling or deactivating additional units. The sale of these plants is consistent with FirstEnergy's strategy of operating as a fully regulated utility company.
Upon completion of the sale, FirstEnergy will own or control a total generating capacity of approximately 15,380MW from nuclear, coal, hydro, wind and solar facilities across the US states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Jersey, Virginia and Illinois.
