FAIRMONT, W.Va., July 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Construction is
underway on a new FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) transmission
substation in Doddridge County, West
Virginia, to support the electric demands of the area's
rapidly expanding Marcellus Shale
gas industry and help enhance service reliability for Mon Power's
customers in Doddridge and
neighboring counties.
As part of the construction process, crews recently completed
the foundation work and erected steel structures at the new 11 acre
substation site near Sherwood, W. Va. The $36 million project also includes a short
transmission line to connect the new substation with an existing
138-kilovolt (kV) line located nearby.
In addition to supporting the MarkWest Sherwood natural gas
processing facility, the new substation and line will reinforce the
regional transmission system and is also expected to benefit more
than 6,000 Mon Power customers along the U.S. Route 50 corridor in
Doddridge, Harrison and Ritchie counties.
"FirstEnergy's infrastructure enhancements help support the
increased Marcellus gas activity in West
Virginia," said Holly
Kauffman, FirstEnergy's president of West Virginia
Operations. "With the natural gas industry bringing new
employment and business development opportunities to the state,
FirstEnergy and Mon Power will keep pace by continuing to upgrade
our system to meet this growing demand for safe and reliable
electric service."
The new substation will be connected to MarkWest's Sherwood
processing facility via two, four-mile transmission lines.
The plant is a midstream processing facility that separates natural
gas into dry and liquid components. The refinement and
separation processes typically use large amounts of
electricity. The new substation has been designed so that it
can be expanded in the future to accommodate additional load growth
at the MarkWest facility.
The new substation is expected to be completed and operational
in December 2014. Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line Company, a
FirstEnergy transmission affiliate, will build and own the
substation. Mon Power will own the short transmission line
connecting to the existing 138-kV line, as well as some metering
equipment inside the
substation.
Mon Power serves about 385,000 customers in 34 West Virginia
counties. Visit FirstEnergy on the internet at
www.firstenergycorp.com, and follow Mon Power on Twitter
@MonPowerWV.
FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company dedicated to safety,
reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric
distribution companies form one of the nation's largest
investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, West Virginia,
Maryland and New York. Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter
@FirstEnergyCorp.
Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes
forward-looking statements based on information currently available
to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and
uncertainties. These statements include declarations regarding
management's intents, beliefs and current expectations. These
statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms
"anticipate," "potential," "expect," "will," "intend," "believe,"
"estimate" and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve
estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and
other factors that may cause actual results, performance or
achievements to be materially different from any future results,
performance or achievements expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially
due to the speed and nature of increased competition in the
electric utility industry, in general, and the retail sales market
in particular; the impact of the regulatory process on the pending
matters before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and in the
various states in which we do business including, but not limited
to, matters related to rates and pending rate cases; the
uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation issues
resulting from American Transmission Systems, Incorporated's
realignment into PJM Interconnection LLC; economic or weather
conditions affecting future sales and margins; regulatory outcomes
associated with storm restoration, including but not limited to
Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Irene and the October snowstorm of 2011;
changing energy, capacity and commodity market prices including,
but not limited to, coal, natural gas and oil, and availability and
their impact on retail margins; the continued ability of our
regulated utilities to recover their costs; costs being higher than
anticipated and the success of our policies to control costs and to
mitigate low energy, capacity and market prices; other legislative
and regulatory changes, and revised environmental requirements,
including possible greenhouse gas emission, water discharge, water
intake and coal combustion residual regulations, the potential
impacts of Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, Clean Air Interstate
Rule (CAIR), and/or any laws, rules or regulations that ultimately
replace CAIR, and the effects of the United States Environmental
Protection Agency's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rules
including our estimated costs of compliance; the uncertainty of the
timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in
connection with any litigation, including New Source Review
litigation or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings
(including that such expenditures could result in our decision to
deactivate or idle certain generating units); the uncertainties
associated with the deactivation of certain older regulated and
competitive fossil units including the impact on vendor
commitments, and the timing thereof as they relate to, among other
things, Reliability Must-Run arrangements and the reliability of
the transmission grid; adverse regulatory or legal decisions and
outcomes with respect to our nuclear operations (including, but not
limited to the revocation or non-renewal of necessary licenses,
approvals or operating permits by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
or as a result of the incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant);
issues arising from the indications of cracking in the shield
building at Davis-Besse; the impact of future changes to the
operational status or availability of our generating units; the
risks and uncertainties associated with litigation, arbitration,
mediation and like proceedings, including, but not limited to, any
such proceedings related to vendor commitments; replacement power
costs being higher than anticipated or not fully hedged; the
ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability
standards and energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates;
changes in customers' demand for power, including but not limited
to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal
energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; the ability
to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic and
financial goals including, but not limited to, the ability to
reduce costs and to successfully complete our announced financial
plans designed to improve our credit metrics and strengthen our
balance sheet, including but not limited to, proposed capital
raising and debt reduction initiatives, and the proposed sale of
non-core hydro assets; our ability to improve electric commodity
margins and the impact of, among other factors, the increased cost
of fuel and fuel transportation on such margins; the ability to
experience growth in the Regulated Distribution and Regulated
Transmission segments and to continue to successfully implement our
direct retail sales strategy in the Competitive Energy Services
segment; changing market conditions that could affect the
measurement of liabilities and the value of assets held in our
Nuclear Decommissioning Trusts, pension trusts and other trust
funds, and cause us and our subsidiaries to make additional
contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than currently
anticipated; the impact of changes to material accounting policies;
the ability to access the public securities and other capital and
credit markets in accordance with our announced financial plan, the
cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and
credit markets affecting us and our subsidiaries; actions that may
be taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us
and our subsidiaries' access to financing, increase the costs
thereof, and increase requirements to post additional collateral to
support outstanding commodity positions, letters of credit and
other financial guarantees; changes in national and regional
economic conditions affecting us, our subsidiaries and our major
industrial and commercial customers, and other counterparties
including fuel suppliers, with which we do business; issues
concerning the stability of domestic and foreign financial
institutions and counterparties with which we do business; the
risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our United
States Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and other
similar factors. The foregoing review of factors should not be
construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and
it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor
assess the impact of any such factor on FirstEnergy's business or
the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may
cause results to differ materially from those contained in any
forward-looking statements. FirstEnergy expressly disclaims any
current intention to update, except as required by law, any
forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise.
SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.