(Source: Shutterstock.com)
Adjacent to the Haynesville Shale play, two power producers announced new gas-fired fleet expansions in December.
Swepco plans a 450 megawatt plant in Harrison County, Texas, and converting a 1 gigawatt (GW) plant from coal to gas nearby in Morris County. Both are in the Southwest Power Pool, outside Texas’ ERCOT grid.
Just east of the Haynesville, Entergy announced three newbuild combined-cycle turbines with a combined capacity of 2.32 GW, with two of these in Richland Parish in North Louisiana.
The plants are to power Meta Platforms’ $10 billion data center, its largest to date, in the parish.
Expand Energy, which produces 2.5 Bcf/d of Haynesville gas, sees gas-fired power demand for data centers as higher-margin, since it brings demand closer to the wellhead.
“You reduce the infrastructure needed to deliver the ultimate valuable product, which is the data that you’re trying to create,” said Nick Dell’Osso, Expand Energy president and CEO.
Transportation cost is less because in-basin demand is a short pipe to the power plant.
“Those opportunities are pretty significant and represent a growth opportunity,” Dell’Osso said.
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