American Electric Power is hoping to develop a fuel cell-powered data center in the Hilliard area that will rely on a natural gas pipeline to be built by a West Virginia company and its Ohio subsidiary.
Known as the Scioto Darby Creek Road Fuel Cell System Project, it will be located in a potentially environmentally sensitive area just north of Scioto Darby Creek Road and west of Interstate 270, according to a document filed with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
“I would assume that there are other pipelines already serving Hilliard,” said Anthony Sasson, a member of the Darby Creek Association and watchdog of ecological impacts in the area. “If the pipeline is new and goes far enough west, that could be an issue.”
Hope Utilities announced an agreement to construct the pipeline to supply a fuel cell project being developed by American Electric Power (Nasdaq: AEP) to power a data center in the county. The size and precise location of the data center have not been released.
“AEP previously announced an agreement to purchase Bloom Energy fuel cells to use as a generation solution for data centers. The (Public Utilities Commission of Ohio) recently approved AEP’s proposal with the end customer supporting the total cost of the fuel cell projects,” Scott Blake, AEP director of media relations, said in an email to The Dispatch. “This pipeline would supply natural gas to one of those projects. Customer information and contract details are confidential.”
AEP in June announced plans to install onsite fuel cells at facilities operated by Amazon Web Services and Cologix. The fuel cells provide the energy that allows these data centers to begin operations quickly, while the electric grid grows to support their needs, according to the news release. Bloom systems provide energy through chemical reactions from solid oxide fuel cells and natural gas. Under these long-term agreements, AWS and Cologix will cover the full project costs.
It was unclear which of the projects would be online first. Blake said that the 4-mile pipeline would act as a connector to a larger gas line. Data centers, typically used by large tech companies Amazon, Google and Facebook, have received scrutiny for their energy consumption and potential to overburden the electrical power grid.
Columbus alone has at least 23 data centers, according to a Dispatch analysis earlier this year.
Hope Utilities, based in Morgantown, West Virginia, owns natural gas, water and wastewater utility companies in several states, including gas utilities in Ohio and four other states. The companies provide service to more than 200,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers.
Hope Utilities’ Ohio subsidiary, Northeast Ohio Natural Gas Corporation (NEO), will build, operate and maintain the pipeline and associated natural gas facilities for this project. NEO is a regulated public utility that provides natural gas service to more than 36,000 customers in 31 Ohio counties.
“Hope Utilities and NEO are ready to deliver the natural gas expertise, infrastructure and resources necessary to move these important projects forward,” Morgan O’Brien, Hope Utilities CEO said in a prepared release. The pipeline project and supporting infrastructure will be complete and in service by October 2026.
“Ohio is poised to benefit from investments to support data centers,” said O’Brien. “Data center investments will significantly enhance the economic trajectory of Ohio and the region. Hope is committed to adding to those investments through infrastructure upgrades and other community investments.”
Delaware County and northern suburbs reporter Dean Narciso can be reached at dnarciso@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: AEP data center in Hilliard area to be powered by new natural gas pipeline in central Ohio
Reporting by Dean Narciso, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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