Dominion News Releases

September 28, 2001

Dominion Plans $600 Million Power Station in Person County

If the 1,100 megawatt combined-cycle facility is completed, it would represent an investment of $600 million in Person County and would employ about 400 construction workers and as many as 40 highly skilled, permanent employees once the station is operational.

Under Dominion’s proposal, the company will sell the facility’s generation to the wholesale electricity market.

Thomas F. Farrell II, chief executive officer of Dominion Energy, Dominion’s electric generation subsidiary, said:

“Person County provides an excellent location for this facility, with access to needed supplies of gas, water and transmission capacity. Dominion brings the financial and technical resources necessary to construct an electric generation facility of genuine value. By constructing the proposed facility here, we can help meet the growing need for energy and make a significant contribution to the regional economy.

“As a company, we take great pride in becoming active corporate citizens of those communities in which we do business. If developed, we intend to accomplish this project with an overriding sensitivity to and compliance with all federal, state and local environmental needs and regulations.

“We look forward to working with the residents of Roxboro and Person County to complete this project in a manner that benefits all parties.” Glen Newsome, executive director of the Person County Economic Development Commission, said:

“Dominion is an excellent company, and we are extremely pleased at the prospect of having them join our corporate community. The capital investment and new job creation associated with this project are substantial and will accord significant benefit to the city, county and state of North Carolina. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Dominion and are committed to bringing this project to fruition.”

If developed, the power station would be located on about 55 acres of a 120-acre site. Dominion will work with state and local officials to finalize site analysis and begin engineering, permitting and project infrastructure activities this fall. The company plans to build the facility in two phases. The first 550 megawatts would begin commercial operations in June 2005, and the second 550 megawatts would come online in October 2005.

The facility is expected to have minimal impact on the environment. The project would use four General Electric Model 7FA generating turbines. These machines have a unique combination of efficiency and environmental performance and are acknowledged by industry experts to be the cleanest, quietest turbines available. The turbines would be fueled by natural gas, a clean-burning fuel source with substantially lower emissions than similar coal-fired stations. The facility’s combined-cycle configuration would provide additional fuel efficiency through a process that captures steam from the natural gas combustion process and uses it to produce additional electricity. Studies measure the sound level of similar facilities at about 65 decibels, or about the same as conversational speech.

The proposed facility would connect along existing rights of way to Carolina Power & Light’s 230 kilovolt transmission lines that run near the site. The facility would use about 180,000 decatherms of natural gas per day from the Greenbrier Pipeline, currently being developed by Dominion and Piedmont Gas.

During times of peak demand, the facility would use about 8 million gallons of water per day for cooling the turbines. About 5.5 million gallons would be released as water vapor, and about 2.5 million gallons would be pretreated and returned to the City of Roxboro. Dominion, the City of Roxboro and Person County are working together to pursue the infrastructure required to supply water to the facility.

Dominion, headquartered in Richmond, Va., is one of the nation’s largest producers of electric power and natural gas. Its 22,000 megawatt electric generation portfolio is expected to grow to more than 28,000 megawatts by 2005. The company also serves 4 million retail customers in fives states, including 110,000 in northeastern North Carolina through its Dominion North Carolina Power subsidiary.

# # #