Federal regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of an old Charles County coal plant to a Maryland company looking to transform the site into a major data center complex.
Approval of TeraWulf’s purchase of the Morgantown Generating Station marks an early step in the Easton-based company’s plan to overhaul the contaminated coal site and use it to power one of the largest server farms in Maryland’s emerging data center industry.
TeraWulf’s acquisition plan drew opposition from environmental and consumer advocacy groups, who expressed concern that a data center complex could increase electricity prices and strain the regional power grid.
But members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in a Wednesday order that they do not expect the purchase to drive up energy costs. Any objections to TeraWulf’s longer-term data center proposal or its environmental impacts were beyond the scope of its decision, FERC said in an order signed by Deputy Secretary Carlos Clay.
TeraWulf reached a deal in February to purchase Morgantown from Houston-based GenOn Holdings. The sale price remains confidential.
Spokespeople for TeraWulf and GenOn did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday.
Read More
Located on the Potomac River in Charles County, Morgantown burned coal for more than half a century before the owners retired its coal-fired boilers in 2022. Since then, the plant has produced about 220 megawatts from a set of 1970s-era oil generators.
TeraWulf hopes to reboot the plant with natural gas to generate a gigawatt of power for data centers, more energy than it takes to power all of Baltimore. The company says an additional 500 megawatts of battery storage would allow the project to feed excess generation into the grid and boost much-needed supply in the region.
TeraWulf is among a host of companies pursuing large-scale data center developments across Maryland, where the industry remains in its infancy.
These proposals have drawn fierce backlash from communities concerned about energy prices and local water and air quality. In recent months, many Maryland counties have adopted moratoriums to temporarily stall data center development.
In Charles County, commissioners earlier this month declined to make a zoning change that would have opened the area to data center construction, instead opting to study the issue.
How state energy and environmental regulators will respond to TeraWulf’s plan remains unclear.
In December, Maryland’s top environmental regulator sent a letter to TeraWulf offering to expedite approvals for a state coal remediation program, as well as permits for the pipeline rights-of-way the company would need to connect Morgantown to natural gas.
The letter came after TeraWulf CEO Paul Prager, an Easton restaurateur and donor to Gov. Wes Moore’s reelection campaign, pushed the governor’s office for months to put support for his project into writing, The Banner reported last month.
Tyson Slocum, who leads energy policy for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, opposed the Morgantown sale in FERC filings. Now that the commission has approved the acquisition, Slocum said he hopes TeraWulf will meet with Charles County residents and publicize the specifics of its plans for Morgantown.
He also urged the Moore administration not to grant shortcuts to the developer.
“Now is the time for the governor to clarify what he’s promised behind the scenes to TeraWulf and what he and his administration are going to do to stand up for the people of Charles County,” Slocum said Wednesday.
Spokespeople for Moore and the Maryland Department of the Environment did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the FERC decision.
The governor’s office has said that the December letter applied strictly to environmental cleanup at Morgantown and that TeraWulf wouldn’t receive special treatment during state regulatory reviews.
Comments
Welcome to The Banner's subscriber-only commenting community. Please review our community guidelines.