Dominion News Releases

December 20, 2001

Dominion Breaks Ground on $800 Million Generation Facility

• Governor Schweiker Praises Dominion’s "Continuing Investment in Pennsylvania"

MORRISVILLE, Penn. – Pennsylvania Governor Mark Schweiker today joined officials from Dominion, one of the nation’s largest energy producers, to break ground on the company’s new $800 million electric generation facility in Falls Township.

When completed in 2004, the Fairless Works Energy Center will occupy a 45-acre site within the USX Industrial Park, about a mile south of Morrisville, in Bucks County. The facility will produce 1,200 megawatts of electricity for sale into competitive wholesale energy markets.

Governor Schweiker said:

“Today, we celebrate Dominion’s continuing investment in Pennsylvania. They are creating new jobs here, and investing in new generation, which will make our competitive electricity market even stronger.

“Electric Choice became law in Pennsylvania five years ago this month. Five years later, Pennsylvanians have saved nearly $4 billion, and more than 40,000 new jobs soon will be created.”

Thos. E. Capps, chairman, president and chief executive officer, said:

“We’re pleased to have the opportunity to expand our investment in Pennsylvania with a project that has wide-ranging and long-lasting benefits both for Dominion and for the entire region.

“The Fairless Works Energy Center will provide a much-needed new source of clean-burning electric generation capacity to meet growing demand for power from Pennsylvanians and their neighbors in the region. It’s an excellent location from which we can serve major load centers between Philadelphia and New York and especially strong demand growth in the eastern portions of the region.

“This project also provides a significant number of new jobs and a multi-million dollar capital investment in Bucks County, with minimal additional demand on the locality’s existing services infrastructure.

“For Dominion, Fairless Works represents an important expansion to our portfolio of electric generation assets in the strategic Midwest-Northeast-Mid-Atlantic quadrant of the U.S. With the addition of this new facility to our existing fleet, we’re increasing our footprint in a market that accounts for 40 percent of the nation’s demand for energy.”

During construction, the project will employ more than 500 workers and provide contracts for local suppliers. Once operational, 40 highly skilled, permanent employees, with an annual payroll of more than $2 million, will staff the facility.

The facility will use four General Electric natural gas-fired turbines, generally acknowledged by industry experts to be the cleanest, quietest available. A combined cycle configuration will provide additional fuel efficiency through a process that produces steam from natural gas combustion and uses it to generate additional electricity.

Demand for energy in the region is expected to increase by more than 12,000 megawatts over the next decade.

Dominion (NYSE: D), headquartered in Richmond, Va., already has a significant presence in Pennsylvania. The company is investing $240 million to build a 600-megawatt generation facility in Armstrong County. It owns more than 1,000 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline and operates 580 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage in the state.

Dominion also owns Dominion Peoples, the Pittsburgh-based natural gas distribution company serving 351,000 retail customers in 16 counties in western Pennsylvania. Dominion has about 1,400 employees in the state.

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